Looking for Opponent for Very Large Battle (details inside)

[shift8]

I am looking for someone who would be willing to do a extremely large CMBS battle on a very large map. Brigade strength, as a general idea of what I mean. We would be using the mission editor to make custom forces instead of the QB editor. We would also pick a map that is very large, and also easy to run. Additional details to be worked out either via PM or discord. 

[gnarly]

@Artemis258 may be your man.

 

See his post:

 

He might be open to other 'titanic' maps as well...  ;D

 

[Kinophile]

I open to it

[Allan Wotherspoon]

I'm interested.  PM me if you want to set up a game.

[Kinophile]

BTW,  I'm especially open to a real time one... 

[Vanir Ausf B]

Sounds like fun, but I would be leary of attempting a game of that scale unless both players are on Macs. CM is much better at memory management than it used to be, but the PC version is still a 32 bit executable. On my rather low end laptop I can get up to around 3 to 4 battalions total on a roughly 10 Sq km map with mostly rural terrain.

[shift8]

40 minutes ago, kinophile said:

BTW,  I'm especially open to a real time one... 

Not so much real time, but would you do in game turn based? I generally prefer that to PBEM but didnt think anyone else would want to. 

[shift8]

Also with this many people interested Ill probabaly do more than one game.

[Kinophile]

I dunno,  in game turn based brigade size would take what,  5 hours minimum? The orders phase per player would be crazy. 

That's why I'd go for a RT brigade,  with c. 1.5 hours setup and 1-2 hrs playtime. 

 

[The Steppenwulf]

I'm up for this - though I've not tested my new desktop (3GHz Processor, 4 Ghz Graphics card) with anything larger than 2km square and a battalion. Can I suggest, with this many players interested, we break up the players up into sides commanding battalions and then aggregate the results somehow.  

 

EDIT: Sorry I meant 4km square (2x2 ) - Max size is 9km square anyway, right?

 

Edited July 2, 2016 by The Steppenwulf

[Kinophile]

I can make a 10km map!? Holy crap,  I though I could only do a max 5x5km.

Gurgle burble nurmble! 

[The Steppenwulf]

That's incredible - i thought we were still restricted to 3x3

[Kinophile]

5 hours ago, Vanir Ausf B said:

Sounds like fun, but I would be leary of attempting a game of that scale unless both players are on Macs. CM is much better at memory management than it used to be, but the PC version is still a 32 bit executable. On my rather low end laptop I can get up to around 3 to 4 battalions total on a roughly 10 Sq km map with mostly rural terrain.

But the mac is still a 32bit also, right? Then the difference in performance will be down to motherboard, RAM and HDD type. GFX card maybe but if you kick off shaders/shadpws I find GFX card performance is not much of a boost (in terms of raw processing other than rendering). I've 32GB ram, solid MB and a SSD so I'm game to try..

[Vanir Ausf B]

5 minutes ago, kinophile said:

But the mac is still a 32bit also, right?

The Mac versions of the CM2 games are 64-bit.

28 minutes ago, kinophile said:

I can make a 10km map!? Holy crap,  I though I could only do a max 5x5km.

Gurgle burble nurmble! 

 

23 minutes ago, The Steppenwulf said:

That's incredible - i thought we were still restricted to 3x3

Maximum map size is 16 square kilometers, IIRC you can make it 4x4 or 1x16 or whatever you want as long as it has 4 sides. I would not recommend attempting to play on a map that large unless it's a featureless desert.

Edited July 2, 2016 by Vanir Ausf B

[Kinophile]

Huh,  well I never. 

[The Steppenwulf]

26 minutes ago, Vanir Ausf B said:

Maximum map size is 16 square kilometers, IIRC you can make it 4x4 or 1x16 or whatever you want as long as it has 4 sides. I would not recommend attempting to play on a map that large unless it's a featureless desert.

Thanks for the clarification. Kinophiles 10km and 5x5km report didn't ring true. But we know what he means. 3 x 3 is just about playable but no large forests or water, few flavour objects and only gradual undulations in terrain.

Personally, I play with HD textures so 2km x 2km (with interesting terrain) is a fair enough trade off - esp with battalion size (max) forces.

 

 

32 minutes ago, kinophile said:

But the mac is still a 32bit also, right? Then the difference in performance will be down to motherboard, RAM and HDD type. GFX card maybe but if you kick off shaders/shadpws I find GFX card performance is not much of a boost (in terms of raw processing other than rendering). I've 32GB ram, solid MB and a SSD so I'm game to try..

 
As I understand it, CM Game Performance relies heavily on single thread processing power so 3-4Ghz processor is the most important component. My old Duo Core 3.5 GZ was just as good as my current Quod Core 3.5 Ghz. 

RAM speed is obviously important to make the most of this.

32 bit processing means that anything above 4 GB RAM is pointless, though a good graphics card can offset this slightly and squeeze a bit more memory. Memory Bus size is key in a graphics card - a 256 bit card is standard if you want it to process efficiently.

 

  

 

[Kinophile]

Doh,  yes,  I forgot the 32bit curse re ram. Dagnabbit. 

And the inevitable question -  is there a 64bit PC  in the works? 

[The Steppenwulf]

1 hour ago, Vanir Ausf B said:

9 minutes ago, kinophile said:

Doh,  yes,  I forgot the 32bit curse re ram. Dagnabbit. 

And the inevitable question -  is there a 64bit PC  in the works? 

Yeh the 32 bit matter is annoying. That said there's a lot of games produced pretty much up to the present that are also 32 bit, after all it's not that easy to go breach these RAM limits.

64 bit - I asked Steve in thread sometime back (2015 perhaps) about this, he replied that it wasn't in any plans for the short- medium term. I took that to mean that we are looking at the next game engine iteration - CM3.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 2, 2016 by The Steppenwulf

[shift8]

How about this. 

 

We get a even number of people, and split those interested into pairs. Or if we have an odd number, some people can play more than one game.

Then we separate into teams. The team that wins the most of the individual battles is declared the winner or loser of the "offensive." Winning for the attacking team would be the equivalent of a breakout etc. The setup rules for each game will be the same, so that each battle is roughly equivalent, but with different terrains. Each terrain will need to be at least a 2x2km. This way we can homogenize the results, but each game can be played independently it doesnt get too unwieldy. Forces would be 1 Brigade for the Attacker, and about 1/3 -1/2 of that for the defender 

 

Hows that?

[shift8]

Also, this may in fact need to be scaled down a tad. I tried putting an American HBCT on the map last night and it was utterly unplayable. Wish we had that 64bit exe lol. It might be possible to do this as a series of battalion sized battles until the larger OOB of a BCT is exhausted. 

[The Steppenwulf]

17 minutes ago, shift8 said:

Also, this may in fact need to be scaled down a tad. I tried putting an American HBCT on the map last night and it was utterly unplayable. Wish we had that 64bit exe lol. It might be possible to do this as a series of battalion sized battles until the larger OOB of a BCT is exhausted. 

Yeh I did indicate this 

[Kinophile]

then if we have enough, lets say each player takes a battalion.

i.e. Id be more interested in relatively even starting forces.

but we screen shot our end game screens and adjust next battle oob to reflect. (with say 50% replaced if win and 35% if lose),  

[snarre]

my expierement on battle limit, go around 3km x 4km maps side and around 1500 man power on both side. if its go ower that then its start to crash on loading.

[Kinophile]

2 hours ago, snarre said:

my expierement on battle limit, go around 3km x 4km maps side and around 1500 man power on both side. if its go ower that then its start to crash on loading.

Similar for me. It also comes to battle management side. Personally, after 1K troops it becomes a case of fire and forget, Ill see you guys in 15 mins, hope you're all still alive then! Ciao bella.

But that was last about 6 months ago and Ive played a lot more since.

 

[The Steppenwulf]

By way of suggestion:

6 players 2 sides (2 x 3)

Each side split into Left, Centre and Right with one player nominated as Captain. 

3 maps (must be between 2km  x 2km & 2 x 3km) agreed upon to play 

Here's the interesting strategic bit:-

Each player is nominated a number of points by their respective captain with which they can select a force.

There are 3 bands of points

1. 10,000 points 2. 5,000 points 3. 2,500 points

Each side decide what players get what points and who will fight which map - Captain's hold final decision. The points each player holds (nor OOB) will not be disclosed to opposition.

Obviously will depend on players integrity to spend under budget but screenshots could serve as proofs for post game analysis of force compositions in any case.

The idea behind this of course is that each player will face slightly different tactical considerations according to the points they have and this shapes the strategy each side adopts. The side that wins is the aggregate score of all three battles.

Armour limitations and other force restrictions - TBD

Victory conditions - TBD (not sure how this works in QB set-up but touching opponents rear line rather than casualties would be ideal)

Battle environment conditions - TBD

Battle length - TBD

Other battle parameters - TBD
 

Lets's crack on!!

 

 

Edited July 3, 2016 by The Steppenwulf