POWs

[Moon]

POWs in CM?

[Guest Big Time Software]

Yup. When an enemy unit surrenders it comes under your control. You must then get them out of the front line and to the rear. Depending on the circumstances it might take a little time for the buggers to get moving, so they might take a casualty or two by mistake. Nobody will target them, but if someone tosses a grenade at the captors, and instead lands near the captured, well... you know

Units that surrender may be able to revert back to enemy status. This happens when there are more of their friendlies around (in good shape) than enemies. However, once a unit surrenders they are finished. They drop all of their weapons. If you get some of your guys back, march em to your rear and save them for another day. This is especially important in campaigns.

Steve

[Guest Lokesa]

I hope we don't get the problem of CC2 where prisoners continued to give intel to players. Please make it not so.

[Mike D]

Lokesa is right on this one. Close combat sucks in that prisoners act as eyes for their fellow country men as they march off toward the enemy rear on their own. There is absolutely no reason for this and it does at times provide some great intel on what's going on behind your opponents lines until the reach the rear edge of the map and exit. Like he says, please don't repeat this kind of dumb mistake.

[Chris Jenkins]

Can we start a scenario with prisoners already in it? Like liberating a POW camp?

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Climb to Glory!

[Guest Big Time Software]

No why would we want to repeat other people's mistakes? When your guys are captured, they become the other player's in terms of LOS/Spotting. Once they move out of your friendly LOS, they wink out and disappear just as if they were enemy.

No to POWs at the start of a game. Don't know of any company sized liberation scenarios that are applicable to CM.

Steve

[Hockler]

I take it units may take second thought to blast away at the location of their captured buddies? They ignored that in CC2, so I decided to line up my German prisoners in an area being torn away at with an MG42, and sure enough their buddies whacked them all, and my Recon team didn't have to babysit anymore.

[Guest John Maragoudakis]

'When your guys are captured, they become the other player's in terms of LOS/Spotting.'

If that is so, can a player manipulate prisoners to place them in a dangerous spot to gain spotting info. If the enemy avoids shooting at it's guys, what's stopping a player from using them as shields.

Unless there are Geneva convention penallties of some sort, a player could place prisoners at the point of an assault What are the mechanisms to prevent a player from unrealistically manipulating prisoners.

[Guest John Maragoudakis]

Say one of your squads is escorting a prisoner back to the rear and that squad is fired upon. I suppose the squad and the prisoner might duck, crawl, whatever.

Can the prisoner's reaction to incoming fire inhibit the squad in any way? Say the prisoner is cowering, would that prevent the squad from being able to leave the area under fire?

[Guest Big Time Software]

John points out exactly why captured troops are ignored by friendly troops. Otherwise you have shields.

In theory you could manipulate enemy troops to scout. But if you were close enough to capture them, you will be close enough to lose them back to the enemy. In other words, you move some prisoners into a thicket of woods, they spot the enemy, you aren't there to guard them, the enemy liberates your prisoners.

Captured troops are worth more to you off the map than on. Prisoners factor into your overall victory rating. Dead prisoners don't.

Steve

[Guest Big Time Software]

Captured units don't *spot* anyone, and so provide no intel to either side. They can be *seen* at all times by the captors, but by their old comrades only if in a direct line-of-sight (and not too far away).

Charles

[Guest John Maragoudakis]

Drats, and I thought I could get away with using my prisoners as human 'trip wires' for an enemy advance.

[Guest John Maragoudakis]

Can a player surrender a group of units if he feels that they are surrounded and will get slaughtered?

I thought the game should reward the enemy for not killing prisoners *and* at the same time reward a commander for not fighting a battle that is a sure loss.

I'm watching this warfilm called Anzio. This group of US Rangers were walking in a field surrounded by hills. All of a sudden Germans appeared from behind hidden bushes and shacks. Then German tanks appeared on the hilltops all around the Rangers. The rangers hit the dirt. The Germans used a loud speaker to call out to the rangers. The germans demanded the rangers surrender in 20 seconds. 20 seconds later, the rangers decided to shoot at the Germans.The Germans slaughtered the Rangers.

I would think the US officer in charge should have had the commen sense to see that his situation was hopeless.

So will CM reward a player for surrendering troops instead of having them get slaughtered if they get caught in a trap?

For example say in a campaign I lose 2 points per man killed. Make it, (example only), that I lose 1 point per man, (my man), surrendered. Now from the enemy's side, make it that he gets, (example only), 1 point per man he kills but 2 points per man captured. Make any sense?

It might seem that the point difference is the same. If I surrender a guy, I get more points than having him dead but the enemy gets more points by capturing him. However, if I surrender a guy and the enemy kills him then I would come out ahead.

On the other hand... If CM is concerned with military objectives and not moral decisions then my whole point is moot.

[This message has been edited by John Maragoudakis (edited 04-16-99).]

[Mike T]

At the risk of being hauled before the War Crimes Tribunal - is there an option for umm foregoing the opportunity to take prisoners and umm taking no quarter as it were. And if there is, does it have the effect of stiffening your enemies reluctance to surrender.

[Guest Big Time Software]

John, interesting suggestion. We'll think about it.

Mike, you have to take prisoners. However, chances are in a sudden close quarter battle most, if not all, will be wiped out before getting the chance to surrender. Also, your troops will open up on prisoners that attempt to flee back to friendly lines.

Steve

[Guest John Maragoudakis]

Thanks for thinking about it. I want to point out that there is a slight possibility of abusing a system where I'm am allowed to voluntary surrender units. You see, it might be to my advantage to 'muffle' an enemy position by directing some my units,(weak ones which are not doing me too much good), to approach an enemy position and offer to surrender. This might temporarily occupy the enemy squad while another one of my squad is setting up for a kill.

Just pointing out that there could be opportunities to manipulate the enemy with your men as prisoners for the enemy, ( guys that are not really helping me, ie weak units).

Butttttt... on the other hand, allowing a player to surrender units voluntarily allows for some fun scare tactics. If you can induce a player to surrender some units by making him think that thier death is certain, all the more fun. Then there's the situation when suddenly a enemy group surrenders when you thought there was a tough fight ahead. You never know what level his confidance is at.

Also...perhaps during a campaign, we can have prisoner exchanges between scenarios. Hey now you would be glad you surrendered one of your favorite guys in a hopeless situation in the hope that you can get him back during a prisoner exchange between scenarios.

You can have missions specifically geared towards capturing prisoners in order to have prisoners to exchange for your guys that got captured.

I'm going insane.

[This message has been edited by John Maragoudakis (edited 04-19-99).]

[Guest Big Time Software]

We have decided to not include surrendering your own troops voluntarily. There are plenty of problems that might crop up, but we don't have time to concentrate on these for first release.

Note that no other computer game that we know of allows you to surrender your units. It is a great concept from both a realism and game standpoint, and we very much want to do it. However, we want to do it RIGHT or not at all. So, looks like it will be "not at all" for now.

Steve

P.S. Of course units will still surrender on their own when they feel they must

[Guest Bobb]

What will be available for demoralized players. Anything more than the quit button?

In a campaign scenario set it would be interesting to be able to withdraw while reasonably intact, running to fight another upon discovering that an untenable or unproductive course has been selected.

In creating designs it would be great to be able to enable a call for reserves with some kind of penality in score to compensate for failure to produce with the means at hand. At least it seems to me an interesting option.

[Guest Big Time Software]

In general if you quite you lose, either because you didn't take your objective or because you didn't hold it. When you quit you get to see the score racked up until that point.

We are putting in something that whacks a player for impropper use of reinforcements. Far too many games allow the player to use stuff simply because it is there. In real war assets were allocated on a "use only if needed" basis. If the commander used them without really needing to, he would have been chewed out. In CM this will be reflected by a hit on your total score. However, if you really do need them, you can use them without penalty.

Steve

[Guest Bobb]

This thing gets to looking better all the time.

No doubt a followup version will be suggested as use turns up more opportunities for enhancement. If this is looking awesome, what will that do to us as players going for seconds? Surely we will die of extream fulfillment and go to a lesser place of repose just to recover. We could shake hands with Old Scratch and tell him we have already had a tour of his realm occasionally playing the losing side of a CM scenario. Ain't this kind of Hell Heaven?

[BDW]

Steve, I don't think you really answered Bobb's question about whether there are any other options other than the "QUIT" button.

I realize the efficiency of the QUIT button. However, I think Bobb's questions is interesting in the context of a campaign. What happens if you are losing a scenario and you want to get the hell out of there without taking too many more losses? Hitting the "QUIT" button seems like an easy, unrealistic way out. Wouldn't it be exciting to have to coordinate a retreat of some sort? Like a move to a fall-back position. I think it would be fun to have to get your units off the map to safety in order to use them in the next scenario of the campaign.

I suppose the QUIT button could simulate this, but it seems like that would take some of the fun out of it...?

Also, can one side's "objective" be a retreat? Like "Allies must exit as many units as possible off west side of map". That sort of thing might be fun and interesting in the campaign context. Is that type of objective even possible?

Along those same lines, what if I wanted to design a "convoy" scenario? Could I make the objective to get as many vehicles as possible from one end of the map to the other?

ok no more questions...!

[This message has been edited by BDW (edited 04-20-99).]

[Guest Big Time Software]

BDW, what you are describing is actually up to the player. If you are supposed to be attacking, but are in fact retreating, you can either Quit (which bails you out of the game with an automatic loss) or fight a retreat and hope for at least a draw. It is even possible that a campaign might turn into a seesaw, where every other battle is a back and forth.

Campaign objectives are quite flexible. You can have objectives to do things like get units from A to B. The one I am looking forward to making is a pocket battle, where one part of my force is trapped and I am sending a second part to rescue the first. The cut off troops will have low ammo and generally weak dispositions, but can hold out for a time. The defender will have to make a decision about where to concentrate force (against the pocket or the spearhead). Should be cool

A scenario/campaign objective might very well be to retreat. Something like get as many of your forces off the edge of the map ASAP. That should be a pretty bloody battle...

A convoy scenario will be easy to make.

Steve

[Guest Lokesa]

Perhaps if time allows you guys could put in some kind of convoy movement command. I'm thinking vehicles in convoy try really hard to mantain relative distance to other members and once disassociated either cannot rejoin or face penalty of some sort. Units under serious threat might break off on their own. we could have objective directly linked to how many trucks make to destination in formation, maybe 1/2 points for vehicles which arrive out of formation.

What do ya think?

[Guest Big Time Software]

Actually, the command isn't needed. We are working to make sure that this road behaviour is automatic. If the front vehicle slows or stops, so too will the ones behind it. If the blocking vehicle is immobilized or destroyed, then the rear vehicles will try to move around it. This is, of course, only if there isn't a threat up ahead. If that were to happen the rearward vehicles would try and go some place else to get out of danger.

If you had a convoy, and it ran into trouble, things are going to get messy That's why you had better clear the road first.

Steve

[BDW]

That is good news about the convoy and the flexability with the campaign. I hope your pocket battle makes it into the game!

Two more questions...

re: convoys - so, if I understand you correctly, if my "convoy" is all lined up on the road, ready to go, all I have to do is select all of them at once, then choose where I want them to go, and they will handle the movemtn on their own, avoiding objects and maintaining the original distance between each other?

re: clearing roads - how do you get a dead vehicle out of the way in CM?

thanks