Chris Posted October 10, 1999 Share Posted October 10, 1999 Hi,I play solo quite a lot and am concerned at the lack of attention given to the solo side. Especially the campaign issue. I understand that human v human is the way to go but I would like to see some official comment on the state of the solo game. In particular, whether the campaign, as such, is the usual string of consecutive scenarios or if any attempt has been made to make it "dynamic". Do other folk share my concerns? This has been the only thing stopping me advance ordering your otherwise , good sounding new game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strider Posted October 10, 1999 Share Posted October 10, 1999 Yes, the campaign is 'dynamic'...There is a large map and each battle is played on a portion of this map. There are more detailed explantions of this in other posts and some reviews. BTS has talked a great deal about the AI...Steve has talked about some scenerios he has played vs AI...he has played the same battle more than once and the AI and the gameplay were different each time (bear in mind, this was also an alpha version he was using). A lot of effort has gone into the AI...bear in mind, you issue orders, then the AI takes over and carries them out without you being able to change them for the following turn...so the AI as an opponent should be better than anything offered by any games to date. BTS says there will be two demos (a beta demo, then the 'release' demo). If you're concerned about gameplay, wait for one or both of these before making a decision. I'm not concerned, and I've already placed my order a while back Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Big Time Software Posted October 11, 1999 Share Posted October 11, 1999 Uh, Chris... I don't know what game you are talking about, but it CERTAINLY isn't Combat Mission. Single player is our primary design focus at every step of the way. No wargame company that I know of has put as much time and energy into the AI as much as we have either. In fact, the intial demo won't even have TCP/IP functionality in it (though PBEM and hotseat work). All scenarios are dynamic. The AI isn't scripted which means you can can create randomly generated scenarios. The campaign is TOTALLY dynamic. More than any other game we have ever played. Use the Search feature and check out a few of the topics that most concern you. Looks like you just haven't read enough of what is available. Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Apocal Posted October 19, 1999 Share Posted October 19, 1999 I have a question for BTS. Will there be a continuous, linked campaign game (ie Close Combat) where you start with an initial batch of green and inexperienced troops that, if they manage to survive, gain more experience as time passes? I always like the role-playing aspect of wargames, taking crap troops and their leaders and turning them into Sergeant Rock and Major Glory ------------------ "Battles are won by slaughter and maneuver. The greater the general, the more he contributes in maneuver, the less he demands in slaughter." Sir Winston Churchill Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Ssnake Posted October 19, 1999 Share Posted October 19, 1999 Apocal, as far as I understood, the answer boils down to a "no". The "campaigns" are not roughly linked battles that are said to take place from D-Day to across the Rhine, but rather "We're supposed to take village X", and then such a (local) battle would be subdivided into several phases (e.g. starting an initial night assault, then at dawn, and finished at noon). Even if you played various "campaigns" in some sort of "meta campaign", you'd always start with the troops the scenario designer placed originally. This is part of the SIM aspect of this GAME. With an average loss ratio of 40% per battle & infantry battalion, only a third of all initial soldiers would be left after the second campaign, and less than a fifth after the third. Although I like that role playing aspect you mentioned, too, it is a rather "gamey" approach. Therefore I understand and support the decision made by BTS to keep that part out of the gameplay of CM. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fionn Posted October 19, 1999 Share Posted October 19, 1999 I just won a game against the AI (yeah !!! .. It sat back with 2 Shermans and shelled my two forward infantry platoons to death, moved in closer and lost 1 to a Panzerschreck which I'd hidden behind a hollow and managed to get the other with a lucky 88 shot..) Anyways at the end of the game my reinforced company plus 88s was down to 20some men and an 88. End result: In a hard fought battle I went from about 150 men to about 30 and only just managed to survive. I was VERY lucky. If you were doing real campaigns in CM you'd be very, very lucky to have a soldier under your command for 3 or 4 hard battles. Rifle companies had 400% replacement rates in only a couple of weeks of fighting (non-continuous). A CM campaign puts you in a hot spot on the front.. A strategic and important town or crossroads or whatever. In these situations units did often fight to anihilation and in CM you'll see that occuring. Cumulative losses over the course of a campaign will be huge and I would expect you to end the campaign with few if any of the units you started it. ------------------ ___________ Fionn Kelly Manager of Historical Research, The Gamers Net - Gaming for Gamers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Big Time Software Posted October 19, 1999 Share Posted October 19, 1999 Ssnake is correct. To play an über camaign, from Normandy until the fall of Germany, would be an abstraction all by itself (mostly for reasons noted above), but also because no one unit fought in all the critical battles of the war. The other thing is time. Such a long über campaing would likely take so much time that only a handfull of people would play it, so it isn't worth simulating even if we went with gamey conventions. There are plenty of indepth posts on this topic, so I won't answer any more than this. Do a Search on this BBS for campaign stuff to find out more. Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Apocal Posted October 20, 1999 Share Posted October 20, 1999 Half a platoon and an 88!!! I see your point! Which brings up another interesting point. I read somewhere (cant remember the site, I believe it was Wild Bill and the Raiders) that a combat battalion taking 20% casualties in one battle was bad, 40% was REALLY bad, and 60% and up was considered complete destruction of the unit. In most wargames I have played they seem to gloss over this and let units fight till 100% percent casualties are reached. If in CM units are regularly fought to 80% losses in men and material then I can see why the game wouldnt bother tracking individual soldier stats. BTW, here is an interesting little tidbit I found floating in cyberspace. You have to dig alittle to find the good stuff but it is there. http://www.2am.com/2am/coc/cocpaper.htm ------------------ "Battles are won by slaughter and maneuver. The greater the general, the more he contributes in maneuver, the less he demands in slaughter." Sir Winston Churchill Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fionn Posted October 20, 1999 Share Posted October 20, 1999 Well Apocal, you're pretty much right but you've got to remember that in war casualties aren't distributed evenly. E.g. in that battalion 75% of casualties will occur in one company which will be almost wiped out whilst the other two suffer maybe 10% casualties and just had an easy afternoon's fighting. In the CM scenario I was playing (which I won't give details of since that would ruin it for you all) the basic premise was that given the overall situation this was a fight to the death and that any retreat would result in tens of thousands of extra deaths.. MANY platoons and companies fought eachother to the death. battalions rarely did so. E.g. In Martin's game with me my reinforcing force was ctually only down to about 50% of its manpower when it reached the village but was totally combat ineffective due to leader casualties, low ammo and a total lack of supporting arms. IOW in CM when you fight a battalion-sized battle it isn't one of anihilation but the lower the scale of the battle the more likely it is to be one of anihilation see? I already read the CoC paper. I personally agree with his findings although many people find issue with the WW2 reports he uses as some of his proof. It is an interesting paper to read though I'll grant you. ------------------ ___________ Fionn Kelly Manager of Historical Research, The Gamers Net - Gaming for Gamers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boris Balaban Posted October 22, 1999 Share Posted October 22, 1999 In a campaign when one side is backing up and the other is advancing will the new map depend on the retreat direction? I have been playing CC2 and CC3 and the map is already predetermined and lacks variety. It would help the defender if he could effect his defense by the direction of the retreat. All dependent on his mobility and reinforcements. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OSCAR Posted October 22, 1999 Share Posted October 22, 1999 >In most wargames I have played they seem to gloss over this and let units fight till 100% percent casualties are reached. ...SOME wargames get it right ------------------ The HPS freak Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fionn Posted October 22, 1999 Share Posted October 22, 1999 Oh that is a load of crap Oscar. I've played game in PiTS in which I've anihilated 95%+ of the enemy forces. You haven't even PLAYED CM... The ONLY reason that fight went on so long was because I REFUSED to give a ceasefire but chose to keep fighting. I'm sick of you blathering on about stuff you don't even know about. This is an example where you are so patently wrong it's sickening. (Yeah I'm sick of your coming here and pretending to know what you are talking about when you haven't even played the game, done any research or ASKED if there are cease fire or surrender options.) Shut up until you actually know something please. I've had emails from people on this forum asking me about the points you raised wondering if you know what you're talking about. You are being DESTRUCTIVE with your blatant bigotry. It's people like you who give the term bigotry and bias a bad name. Now PLEASE shut up before you say even more laughably incorrect things WHICH people who don't have the game (like you don't have it) can't see for the utter bull**** they really are. Shut up OR answer the points MANY others made in response to your posts before posting more.. Respond to my example of how a 1 m/sec movement in PiTS can result in a movement of either 10 metres or 200 metres DEPENDING ON RANDOM ASSIGNATION OF SUBHEX LOCATION BY THE COMPUTER before you come in here spouting crap. How realistic is THAT ? Like I said to someone today.. If you ever saw TiTS in real life you'd probably ask the woman to show you a 2d hex-based representation of them since you felt 3D wasn't "realistic". God, I'm just sick of your blatant lies. The worst thing is you have no shame since you keep posting. ------------------ ___________ Fionn Kelly Manager of Historical Research, The Gamers Net - Gaming for Gamers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Apocal Posted October 23, 1999 Share Posted October 23, 1999 Really OSCAR? I would love to know which ones. Seriously, it is pretty lame to use someone else's arguement for your own purposes. [This message has been edited by Apocal (edited 10-23-99).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fionn Posted October 23, 1999 Share Posted October 23, 1999 I've edited this post to conform to the BTS wish to not mention a certain person in a post. [This message has been edited by Fionn (edited 10-23-99).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tss Posted October 24, 1999 Share Posted October 24, 1999 The larger the unit having 20% casualties, the greater the reduction of fighting capacity of the unit because there are a lot of non-combat personnel in large units. A couple of weeks ago I found out that my grandfather served in Finnish JR58 (Infantry Regiment 58) which was a part of 10th Division. I guess most of you are not aware of it but during 9-10 June 1944 the division was in the front line when Soviets started their Summer Offensive on their section. The artillery preparation was truly horrible. In fact, it was probably the heaviest to the date if we calculate number of shells fired / the length of front. (I tried to search information on the Normandy naval bombardment, but I couldn't find any exact figures.) The Soviets had massed over 2000 artillery pieces and they fired 310000 shells against 8 km frontline in 24 hours. That's about 38 shells for each _meter_ of the front line (and 50 shells for each of 6000 defenders). This barrage combined with several hundred Sturmoviks and a massed attack of six divisions broke through Finnish lines in 26 hours and sent the 10th Division into hasty retreat. At the time there were only two regiments in the division, JR1 and JR58. Of these JR1 was hit worse and it suffered 25% casualties, while JR58 had "only" about 20%. JR1 was so badly shaken that it couldn't be used on front line for the rest of the war. JR58 participated in fighting withdrawal but it too had to be sent to refitting shortly afterwards. Even after refitting it was used only as a reserve at Viipuri Bay area. I'm not certain of what happened to my grandfather. He didn't tell anybody about his experiences. To tell the truth, I'm not surprised about that. After all, he was in worst spots in two wars and probably saw his younger brother to die in combat. I think he was wounded in leg during the barrage, since his "battle list" doesn't mention any battles fought during the withdrawal, but mentions him being present at Viipuri Bay a month later. By his military rank he was probably a platoon leader at the time. -Tommi Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Apocal Posted October 25, 1999 Share Posted October 25, 1999 You are right tss. I got this out of "How to Make War"(Third Edition) by Jim Dunnigan. After losing about 20-30 percent of their troops, higher level units (regiments, divisions, etc) begin to fall apart because most of these losses are in the combat branches, especially infantry and armor. If you push one of these high level units past the 30% point they begin use their support troops as (much to the support troop's dismay)line-infantry. Push them even farther (past the 50%) point, nothing is left to guard the remaining support troops and the unit ceases to exist. BTW, we passed the 10,000 post marker on this board at 5:58 PM (PST). [This message has been edited by Apocal (edited 10-24-99).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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