CM Ergonomics

[Erwin]

I think the CM2 game/engine is pretty good. There is a demand for larger scenarios. What is getting harder is coping with all the units in a large scenario. I thought I would start a thread re "ease/efficiency of play" issues.

NOTE: This is NOT about dumbing down CM, only about reducing the number of clicks and steps it requires to do certain things in CM2 so as to speed up/make more efficient the process/mechanics of play. Players want to focus on decisions and actions that are fun, rather than fighting an inefficient UI to get certain actions accomplished.

To start, these are my suggestions and desired improvements which I think would greatly speed up play, and possibly even increase realism:

1) Revamp ACQUIRE process.

Units can swap ammo and equipment from adjacent units. A TIME DELAY (eg: 10-30 seconds) would be required when acquiring and only a "REASONABLE QUANTITY" OF AMMO EQUIPMENT COULD BE ACQUIRED/SWAPPED. (Don't allow a two man team to run away with several thousand rounds plus rockets etc. is regularly done now.) However, the min amount of ammo that could be acquired would be reduced to a 100 rounds so that snipers etc could get an appropriate amount of ammo. (Currently, the min amount of ammo acquirable from most vehicles is usually 500-1000 rounds until the supply is greatly diminished.)

2) SELECTABLE WAYPOINTS AND LINES.

When you have large numbers of units being moved several hundred meters from the location of the actual units, and there is a bunch of waypoints/lines close to each other, it is a PITA to have to go back over the map to locate the desired next unit in order to select each unit, then move back to the end waypoint to change its location or add more waypoints. Bring back the CM1 ability to simply click on a waypoint or line in order to select the next unit.

3) COLOR OR ICON CODE TEAMS OF A SQUAD.

In a high density scenario it takes time to locate the teams of a squad so that it can be recombined efficiently, and also to ensure teams of a squad are kept reasonably together. Currently its easy to get teams of one squad mixed up with other squads' teams and it's a PITA to sort out the mess.

4) ONE CLICK 180 DEGREE ARC

Bring back the easy CM1 one-click 180 degree arc. With armor especially you often want the turret to point in a certain direction. It is a time-wasting PITA to change the covered arc of a dozen tanks with the current system.

Am sure you all can think of many other ergonomic issues that would greatly help speed up play - increasingly important as the CM2 scenarios become larger.

[Kieme(ITA)]

I agree with all points,

let's not forget the editor, we really need some upgrades if we need to start making larger maps. There have been some tweaks already concerning rendering speed etc. (3.0 upgrade). Although still more can be done.

I dream about a -copy and save- system where you can select a certain size of squares (5x5, 10x10 etc.) and save all its contents, from buildings, to flavor objects to chosen textures to foliage, then save the said part with a name and be able to repaste it as many times you want in any scenario you want.

This instrument could let you make a nice looking farm, for example, with all the props, and use it in any scenario you need without the need to replace everything every time, thus saving time and letting you concentrate on other things.

Or imagine a city block etc.

[mjkerner]

Good stuff, Erwin and Kieme!

[AttorneyAtWar]

Good stuff Erwin, I agree with all of it, especially selecting movement lines and color coded squads!

[Whiterider]

Erwin ideas are pretty reasonable because they would improve gameplay making it more efficient and quick. CM is an excellent game and these little additions make it even greater. Realism+Efficiency (simplification)=Quality

By the way I´d love to browse different folders inside the game when you´re going to choose a scenario. Ie a folder for official games and another for downloaded ones.

[sburke]

By the way I´d love to browse different folders inside the game when you´re going to choose a scenario. Ie a folder for official games and another for downloaded ones.

i love that idea. it would certainly help me to keep them organized

[mjkerner]

i love that idea. it would certainly help me to keep them organized

I just rename downloaded ones by putting "01" in front of the title. They show up first (alphabetically)

[Whiterider]

I just rename downloaded ones by putting "01" in front of the title. They show up first (alphabetically)

I also love this idea

[JasonC]

"There is a demand for larger scenarios"

On what planet?

I want much, much smaller scenarios than we get.

[JonS]

"There is a demand for larger scenarios"

On what planet?

Erwin wants them, ergo there is a demand. QED. He speaks for us all, donchaknow.

[Hellas]

Selectable movement paths sounds like an EXCELLENT idea. Turning around with the camera and on bigger maps moving around to the unit with the associated path is less than ideal.

Also the idea with an automatic 180 degree arc seems to be a very good one. With tanks its sometimes annoying making their turrets turn into the wished direction and trying to keep the arc as wide as possible.

I would like that

Assign selected units to camera-group (CTRL + 1-9) are saved with the game.

I find it annoying after loading a game, that they are lost. I don't use them at all, because of this.

[Blazing 88's]

...On what planet?...

This one......

[Erwin]

Niiiice system!

Am getting ready for either a major upgrade or all-new system to get ready for all those huge scenarios we'll be getting. (Sorry Jason and Jon. But, many current scenarios seem small to me. I am sure there will still be small ones for you guys.)

[A Canadian Cat]

I would like that

Assign selected units to camera-group (CTRL + 1-9) are saved with the game.

I find it annoying after loading a game, that they are lost. I don't use them at all, because of this.

Oh, I would so love this...... Please, please, pretty please.

[Andrew Kulin]

A follow command so vehicles can move along roads or any other user defined travel path in a convoy-like manner without bunching up.

[Blazing 88's]

A follow command so vehicles can move along roads or any other user defined travel path in a convoy-like manner without bunching up.

This has been wished for before and would be a good thing.

Plotting with pause times, per vehicle, to make a convoy or formation work is tedious... in a sick kind of way, I don't mind it. A sense of accomplishment when you pull it off, especially with lots of units.

[SlowMotion]

I would like that

Assign selected units to camera-group (CTRL + 1-9) are saved with the game.

I find it annoying after loading a game, that they are lost. I don't use them at all, because of this.

Agree... Now this feature is usable against the AI, not in PBEMs.

[John Kettler]

Andrew Kulin,

The core "follow me" math (goslings following mamma) already exists. I saw it in an episode of NUMB3RS, which had a math prof on the production staff making sure the math presented was correct. Unfortunately, I don't recall (as if I could) what the equation or algorithm was named. The problem "should" be doable in CM (has been sought since CMBO), but I have no idea what it'd cost to do it. Still, we can hope!

Erwin,

I like your one-click cover arc idea.

Regards,

John Kettler

[MikeyD]

There is a demand for larger scenarios.

I think CM scenarios are starting to suffer from the "Cheesecake Factory Syndrome". That's when people figure if reasonable sized portions are satisfying then absurdly large portions should be that much more satisfying! I suppose with CM scenarios you could play only as much as you wanted and then take the rest home in a doggie bag to play later.

[Michael Emrys]

Old hotrodders' dictum: If some is good, more is better.

Michael

[Erwin]

It's probably cos many of us are old CM1 hands and we became fans of the huge maps and scenarios that were easily playable in CM1.

CM2 with its detail was wonderful, but that intricacy makes CM2 much harder and more time-consuming to play - which also made it a bit of a shock (as in SHOCK FORCE - geddit??)

However, the almost operational nature and mobile warfare aspects of the huge CM1 scenarios was great. And that is what many of us would like to see in CM2 (once the tech has caught up and we have some ease of play/ergonomics worked out).

B4 someone jumps on me, there is nothing wrong with small intimate scenarios as well.

[Vanir Ausf B]

My enjoyment of CM is derived more from the process than the result. Whether I spend 20 hours playing one large scenario or 20 hours playing 3 small ones it's still 20 hours.

Having said that, I am loving the bigger scenarios. Large maps allow for troop transport to matter, artillery to be less decisive and armor engagement ranges to be at their historical norm.

[JasonC]

Erwin - CMx2 went to single man depiction, tracking of every round fired, and smaller 8 meter action spots. The men bunch up too much unless one reacts to that by also using the new features to split squads, and not just into uniform halves but into weapon specialized teams from 2 to 6 men each. The result is an increase in realism and control, certainly - but also a decided step lower in the unit scale typically being shown on the map. It is only the same as CMx1 for commanding a single vehicle. And even that has become more involved, with dismounting, remanning, acquiring, use of transport as mobile supply points, and the like.

Why is anyone surprised that when you make a game that repays giving commands to every team or even pair of infantry soldiers, the playable scale shrinks? You just raised the number of units the player is expected to give meaningful orders to by a factor of 3, and you think you can go *larger*? Only for people with infinite time to burn on each turn, or twitchers who play real time and just don't use their new controls.

For anyone who is actually using the ability to split teams and use them correctly down to the small tactics of whether this 4 man group should be moving at "quick" or on "hunt" over this 60 meter section of its path, of course the playable scale has decreased, and decreased materially.

The player has all the old roles *plus* the new intense role of *squad leader* for *every squad* in his force. (Because deciding that small team tasking, movement rates and coordination roles among their component teams, is exactly what squad leading sergeants actually do for a living). If they just aren't doing that job, OK, whatever floats your boat I suppose, but it is the entire point of the new system to give the player that command role.

Where in CMx1 I found commanding a single platoon too simple and boring, without enough variables to control, and thus a company the minimum scale for a reasonable action, in CMx2 commanding a single platoon with a couple of attachments is a perfectly reasonable command task for the whole game. In CMx2, I might have 12 to 15 units on the map for a single German Panzergrenadier *platoon* (HQ, 6 half squads, schreck teams, an attached sniper or tank hunter, a detached 2 man scout team "on point", perhaps an attached HMG squad as 2 fire teams, etc); in CMx1 I would have had 4 to 6 at most, and 12 to 15 would be a full company.

In CMx2, I will give each of those units paths that take into account every doorway and window, that routinely use 3 and sometimes 4 different movement rates for portions of those paths, and that have as their point the positioning of a single MG-42 or scoped rifle for the next stage of the combined arms dance. I am effectively selecting individual fighting positions. In CMx1, I would give simple orders that used "advance" whenever any kind of action or enemy fire was possible, "move to contact" only early or for rare purposes, and "move" only for "admin marches" well off the line. Those orders positioned whole squads not individual weapons, in full bodies of terrain not individual fighting positions, with all of their micro control of the positioning of team members and weapons to give this or that relative line of sight, all handled by the single unit abstraction layer of "the squad".

CMx2 is simply a game at a different unit scale, down one from the previous. But scenario designers have not sufficiently reacted to this obvious fact, in my opinion. The tiniest infantry only quick battle clocks in at a full company with supporting heavy weapons on each side, which is about the same total command span and intensity as a *battalion* scale fight in CMx1. Nobody would have called a CMx1 battalion scale fight "tiny". By the time one is commanding whole CMx2 reinforced battalions - which the command structure determined unit selection screens positively encourage, incidentally - you have the command span requirements and micromanagement intensity of regimental sized CMx1 games. Which people tried, but as essays in giantism (To the Volga e.g.) or as whole campaigns.

Then people wonder why the learning curve to CMx2 seems daunting to many.

We need far more CMx2 scenarios set at the single platoon scale, and the bulk of them should be set at the single company scale. Yes a few die hards will want giant ones, fine. But if that is all you make you are demanding that only people without jobs or lives play CM. Face the reality that CMx2 is a smaller unit scale game and that therefore the *easily playable* action size it can depict is a *full unit scale lower* than was readily playable in CMx1.

[Buzz]

JasonC, "CMx2 is simply a game at a different unit scale, down one from the previous.... We need far more CMx2 scenarios set at the single platoon scale, and the bulk of them should be set at the single company scale....CMx2 is a smaller unit scale game...."

Agreed. I play Elite RT vs. AI most of the time. I focus on smaller platoon level actions ... even in much larger scenarios. I use the new controls, split squads into weapon specialized teams and enjoy the squad leading sergeants perspective. Doing so in larger scenarios, with no pausing, is a blast. Local success in a larger scenario will often mean I fail to get a overall victory but I am often enjoying the challenge of the smaller platoon level action. I can always pause and save and eventually use WeGo when I am looking for the overall win.

My schedule makes playing PBEM a bad option for reasonable return rate. I don't have infinite time to burn on each turn. Sitting down to Elite RT vs. AI. I focus on smaller platoon level action w/o pauses at the end of the day is great fun and quick. I can always restart and add another platoon or two to my command role to up the challenge in RT:)

Remember, CM has always been, and always will be, about realism first. -- Steve Grammont

[SlowMotion]

About ergonomics:

Now if you plot a movement path, add a target command to a path node and THEN move the node, the target command disappears.

If the target command stayed this would be an easy way to find hull down position for tanks. Just move the path node and watch the target line changing colour. This is the way it worked in CMx1 and it was very useful.