WEGO TCP option

[MHertogh]

Any word on playing in WeGo mode in a TCP network game In Final B? (like the original Combat Mission series?). I searched the forums, and the manual and saw no details on this. My hope comes from the features page that says the following "Any mission can be played in either Real Time or our novel WEGO hybrid..." but any mission is different from any mode, so I just wanted to clarify.

 

Thanks.

 

[womble]

You can play TCPIP WeGo. You don't get to replay the minute between orders phases, so it's effectively RealTime with an enforced pause every 60 seconds, and the inability to issue orders during any other pause. It ought to be there in the manual; it's been an option since the advent of v3 with CMRT, IIRC.

It's not the same as the old "both giving orders in parallel" model of the CMx1 engine, and it would take some major architecture engineering to arrange for that to be possible after the decisions taken way back in the development of CMSF.

[MHertogh]

Damn.. Ok well that sucks... still.... I feel like Don Quixote constantly coming back here over the years in hope of them putting back the one feature I fell in love with years ago.

Is a new improved engine in the works that will support this classic style?  If so, I'll be back then.

Thank you for the information Womble.

 

 

[womble]

6 minutes ago, MHertogh said:

Damn.. Ok well that sucks... still.... I feel like Don Quixote constantly coming back here over the years in hope of them putting back the one feature I fell in love with years ago.

Is a new improved engine in the works that will support this classic style?  If so, I'll be back then.

Thank you for the information Womble.

 

 

There's no confirmed information of whether a "CMx3" is in the pipeline, let alone what features it might incorporate. My personal gut feeling, as someone who's information on the matter is solely from synthesis of disparate statements on these boards, is that the old incarnation of WeGo TCP, with replay and simultaneous order entry is dead and buried. However, I struggle to believe that the given game format was the only thing that appealed. It would be tragic to lose the exemplary fog of war and high fidelity (though obviously not perfect) simulation of combined arms combat in the age of the tank just because you couldn't bring yourself to play ordinary PBEM. In so many ways, PBEM is more suited to the modern lifestyle. You don't have to be sat there while your opponent scrutinises the results of his orders and ponders his next move. For my part, I'd make a purely lousy WeGo TCP player, because I reckon I spend more time than most on each turn, so you'd be finished your orders and twiddling your thumbs... and many a pairing would result in a similar scenario, if only because defense is more often static than attack...

So much has improved with the change to x2 that resolving to abandon the franchise entirely because of the lack of old-style TCP WeGo would be a terrible case of throwing several dozen babies out with one pailful of bath water.

[MHertogh]

Perhaps I am being too finicky,  How seamless is PBEM? I use Gmail. Does it involve playing a turn saving a file, tabbing out, pulling up a browser, creating a email, attaching the file and then sitting there until the other player does the same?  Seems so cumbersome. 

I see your point with playing games with strangers, but I always played with good friends/relatives so we had agreed upon acceptable delays (Also since we all only player each other, the time we needed to take our turn tracked well over time.)

And if I do all that do I still get a VCR like playback from the original? I loved being able to re-watch the battle from different points, or to re-watch a particularly amazing event. If it can do that, I might give it a go.  From the sounds of it, the replay feature was also removed, so you get to watch it once and then you have to give your orders.

 

 

[Bulletpoint]

3 hours ago, MHertogh said:

Perhaps I am being too finicky,  How seamless is PBEM? I use Gmail. Does it involve playing a turn saving a file, tabbing out, pulling up a browser, creating a email, attaching the file and then sitting there until the other player does the same?  Seems so cumbersome. 

Yes, it's indeed cumbersome, but there's a little program that makes it somewhat easier. Look up 'CMhelper' and 'Dropbox'.

Still, I think this should be basic functionality in the game, making it easier to just focus on playing 

3 hours ago, MHertogh said:

And if I do all that do I still get a VCR like playback from the original? I loved being able to re-watch the battle from different points, or to re-watch a particularly amazing event.

Yes, fortunately you still get the repeated replay option with PBEM.

Edited June 1, 2016 by Bulletpoint

[weapon2010]

On ‎5‎/‎29‎/‎2016 at 4:17 PM, Bulletpoint said:

Perhaps I am being too finicky,  How seamless is PBEM? I use Gmail. Does it involve playing a turn saving a file, tabbing out, pulling up a browser, creating a email, attaching the file and then sitting there until the other player does the same?  Seems so cumbersome.

pbem couldn't be easier with dropbox and I don't use or need cmhelper, not cumbersome at all

[womble]

4 hours ago, MHertogh said:

Perhaps I am being too finicky,  How seamless is PBEM? I use Gmail. Does it involve playing a turn saving a file, tabbing out, pulling up a browser, creating a email, attaching the file and then sitting there until the other player does the same?  Seems so cumbersome. 

You don't even need to use email these days, just Dropbox. And the CMHelper or IanL's little utility do make turn exchange pretty much seamless in combination with shared online file storage.

4 hours ago, MHertogh said:

And if I do all that do I still get a VCR like playback from the original? I loved being able to re-watch the battle from different points, or to re-watch a particularly amazing event. If it can do that, I might give it a go.  From the sounds of it, the replay feature was also removed, so you get to watch it once and then you have to give your orders

With "proper PBEM", you get to watch the playback as often as you like  The replay feature isn't available in RealTime, and the "TCP WeGo" implementation in CMx2 is basically realtime play, as I mentioned above. Playing "1-player turn-based", "2-player hot-seat" or "2- player email" (to use the terms in the actual menu in-game), you get to take as many looks as you want.

I cannot recommend highly enough that you download the demos and have a look. Your CMx1 playmates (if you're still in touch) can also DL the demo and you can play the available scenarios head-to-head. The AI is, IMO, improved over the CMx1 version, since it has a lot of human input, in the AI scripting. That scripting precludes random maps (as do taste and good sense  ), but means that for scenarios where the forces available are well known to the designer, the AI can do some good things to make for an interesting game.

[A Canadian Cat]

Here is a good thread on finding PBEM opponents and the support tools that make things easier (look at my sig for a link to my utility Whose Turn Is It?).

 

[shift8]

On 6/1/2016 at 5:45 AM, womble said:

You can play TCPIP WeGo. You don't get to replay the minute between orders phases, so it's effectively RealTime with an enforced pause every 60 seconds, and the inability to issue orders during any other pause. It ought to be there in the manual; it's been an option since the advent of v3 with CMRT, IIRC.

It's not the same as the old "both giving orders in parallel" model of the CMx1 engine, and it would take some major architecture engineering to arrange for that to be possible after the decisions taken way back in the development of CMSF.

What exactly was changed that makes it do hard to implement true WEGO in TCP? Legitimately curious, because I am having a hard time imagining what sort of crazy code gymnastics must have occurred to make something as simple WEGO without PBEM impossible. I always prefered CMx1's option to play WEGO "in game" rather than using the archaic method of email play. It is particularly onerous in CMx2 because the load times are horrendous. So has BFC actually ever specified some kind of engine limitation or is this just the line the community likes to feed itself?

[womble]

 

4 hours ago, shift8 said:

What exactly was changed that makes it do hard to implement true WEGO in TCP? Legitimately curious, because I am having a hard time imagining what sort of crazy code gymnastics must have occurred to make something as simple WEGO without PBEM impossible. I always prefered CMx1's option to play WEGO "in game" rather than using the archaic method of email play. It is particularly onerous in CMx2 because the load times are horrendous. So has BFC actually ever specified some kind of engine limitation or is this just the line the community likes to feed itself?

Well, it took 3 versions (CMSF, BNv1 and v2) without the feature at all before they managed to shoe-horn the current (I agree, unsatisfactory) version into v3 (RT). Given that the current implementation is effectively RealTime with no pauses allowed in the minute between a mandatory shared pause (that's finished when the second player hits the BRB), there must be some reason they can't have the game calculate from simultaneous inputs. The turn exchange for WeGo was streamlined in x2 compared to x1; it has one less step and is not vulnerable to someone calculating the turn and then using the replay to see about re-running the turn for a more advantageous result before returning it to their opponent. The architecture is strictly built around asynchronous order entry; if it were straightforward to unpick that, I think there's been enough demand for simultaneous order entry. As it is, the second person to watch the turn cannot do so until the first person has generated their orders; the file that is passed from the player who calculates the turn contains the orders; extracting that could be demanding...

[shift8]

4 hours ago, womble said:

 

Well, it took 3 versions (CMSF, BNv1 and v2) without the feature at all before they managed to shoe-horn the current (I agree, unsatisfactory) version into v3 (RT). Given that the current implementation is effectively RealTime with no pauses allowed in the minute between a mandatory shared pause (that's finished when the second player hits the BRB), there must be some reason they can't have the game calculate from simultaneous inputs. The turn exchange for WeGo was streamlined in x2 compared to x1; it has one less step and is not vulnerable to someone calculating the turn and then using the replay to see about re-running the turn for a more advantageous result before returning it to their opponent. The architecture is strictly built around asynchronous order entry; if it were straightforward to unpick that, I think there's been enough demand for simultaneous order entry. As it is, the second person to watch the turn cannot do so until the first person has generated their orders; the file that is passed from the player who calculates the turn contains the orders; extracting that could be demanding...

Ok I see where you are coming from. But for myself I will not simply assume a technical problem unless BFC says there is one. Even then, that would require some explanation. I still find it hard to believe that there is some kind of technical issue. After all, all it would be is what PBEM already does: simply without leaving the games interface. 

I dont think (demand + no result) = cant. Game companies refuse to change things all the time for tons of different reasons. It may be a case of simple lack of inclination. There are a number of features in cmx1 (like the push campaigns for example) that failed to carry over. I think CMx2 was overall and improvement over x1, especially in terms of armor ballistics, but there are a few serious losses from the former. 

Although I on a side note I am not sure how much I really care for getting the rewind aspect specifically. There are some cases where this feature adds to the realism, but I think that is the minority. Most often I find myself and others using this mechanic to unreasonably analyze a situation by seeing the same even 100 times  over. Doing silly things like tracking the exact location of a hidden AT gun by following the tracer ultra precisely etc. It detracts somewhat by the aspect of WEGO I most like: the prevention of second by second micro of single units. But I digress. 

[womble]

4 hours ago, shift8 said:

Ok I see where you are coming from. But for myself I will not simply assume a technical problem unless BFC says there is one. Even then, that would require some explanation. I still find it hard to believe that there is some kind of technical issue. After all, all it would be is what PBEM already does: simply without leaving the games interface. 

Actually no: that's the "Hot seat" style of game (which is an option). Having an equivalent of the old CMx1 TCP-WeGo requires, I believe, that both players be able to view the playbacks and issue orders concurrently, on separate screens. Because of the way the turn exchange sequence is built, this apparently isn't trivial to arrange (or they'd've done it that way). It's an architecture decision (the whole game, including orders passes between the players, rather than each player "handing in" a set of orders to the calculation engine) and possibly one they'd reconsider in a later version.

I infer that it is difficult because setting up the current compromise took a long time to get to the top of the features-to-code stack (which means the product of "coding/testing hours required" and the inverse of "consumer demand" was high), so the ability to replay the turns in TCP-WeGo must be harder to code, because the demand from consumers for it would be even higher than what we've ended up with. It's not because BFC don't want to code it (they've produced the current compromise). So while it might not be impossible, BFC don't seem to think it warrants the effort needed to implement, based on the demand (or lack of it) from their customer base. Of course, it could just be that BFC assess the demand for the feature as slender-to-vanishing, and sorting out the current compromise took Charles 5 minutes just before his nutrient fluid was changed, so they chucked it in as a sop to the half dozen people who want it.

I'm pretty sure Steve did mention something about it not being easy, though, and I get the feeling there are a fair number of people who'd like to see it (though how many just want it to complete an idealised, nostalgia-based feature set compared to the number who'd actually have time to wait around while their opponent watched the replay for the four hundredth time is more debatable).