RTS version of CM ever?

[xerxes]

Has it ever been considered to do a RTS version of CM? One in which a minute is a minute and there is no time to debate the next "move"? Personally I think that would increase "realism" more than any other changes. It's also a lot of fun. Real-time strategy is a very different world. I've played a lot of Myth which is a true RTS in which strategy and unit selection are key.

Not that they should ever do away with "we-move" but I think a real-time version would pose different challenges.

Of course the a.i. would have to take a much bigger role and commands would probably only be given to HQs who would Tac-AI direct the units under their command.

Also having multiple commanders/players on a team would really be required. Once again I'm thinking of a myth-like system. BTW, someone did a total conversion of myth to wwII. It's totally unrealistic and not really strategic but it's very popular none the less.

- xerxes

[Stacheldraht]

The complexity of CM wouldn't lend it self well, if at all, to fully real-time gameplay. If you look at most RTS games, they're quite a bit simpler than CM in many regards, which makes it possible to handle so much happening at once without a break. Of course, many RTS games also allow you give orders while paused, which comes a bit closer to the CM system.

[ 07-07-2001: Message edited by: Stacheldraht ]

[Slapdragon]

Fastest clicker wins games are under development by other companies. I think RTS would need an entire engine rewrite.

[Cheese Burn]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Slapdragon:

Fastest clicker wins games are under development by other companies. I think RTS would need an entire engine rewrite.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

If you think the fastest clicker wins, you don't play many RTS's. The fact is, in Sudden strike or red Alert, a single well placed strike will kill a superior enemy, Regardless of how the resource manage...

[deanco]

Cheese Burn is right. However, it's a lost cause, you guys. Talking about RTS here is like going to alt.catholic.discussion and talking about atheism. I understand what you're talking about, though.

Dean 'twitch click Quake crowd' Co

[Stacheldraht]

Quite right about RTS games: the better ones really do involve tactics (though not the sort you find in CM, generally). Nevertheless, you're barking up the proverbial wrong tree by mentioning either RTS games or shooters here in anything approaching a favorable light. You'll find that many wargamers seem to play wargames (or CM) exclusively or aren't much in tune with what's going on outside the genre. There are a number of happy exceptions, of course.

[Warmaker]

Speaking of exceptions, those expansions for Baldur's Gate II and Diablo II are quite nice!

[Randy Mauldin]

Please no RTS!

[Maximus]

Well to really break down why CM as it is now will never be ABLE to go real-time is this:

1) Could not have the detailed ballistics and armor penetration algorithms going on in real-time. Would take a 2 GHz processor just to keep up.

2) Too many units over a large complex 3D map. The biggest complaint in the RTS genre is that when a RTS does go 3D, avid RTS fans have a very difficult time adjusting to a 3D map. For example, I just bought a new RTS from Westwood Studios called "Emperor: Battle for Dune" which is in full 3D. You can zoom, rotate the camera just about like you can in CM and I went to the message board and people seem to like the Red Alert 2 engine better. It's almost as if the avid RTS players (who tend to be teenagers or early 20s) can't seem to grasp 3D. These are also the types that are the Playstation gamers. Playing 3D computer games since the early 90s, I can thoroughly think in 3D.

This is all ironic, because supposedly the BIGGEST RTS title to ever come out is coming out this summer or fall called Empire Earth is in about the same game engine as Emperor is and if these gamers can't adjust to it, then the hell with them basically.

But back to CM, true, it does take a little bit of strategy in RTS's such as unit puchases and whatnot, but in a true war-game like CM, the only way to win is BY strategy. Try the same "rush" tactics in CM as you would in an RTS and you'll get your ass handed to ya. Because in CM you have to use real-;life tacics and the only way you can do that effectively is by the WE-GO system.

[Pzman]

Well said Max. But as for teens not getting 3D um what planet are you from. :confused:

But I should say that as most people my age are ether PS(Play station) or Computer game people. My friends like CM but they said they wouldn't buy it. They like Axis and allies... and I say why spend 2weeks to play when you can do it a few hours. But now back to the topic. Other then a few people I can see why they don't get 3D games... for people who grew up playing on Nitendo with flat graphic its hard to grasp I guess.

[ 07-08-2001: Message edited by: Panzerman ]

[gunnergoz]

AAAARRRRGGGG! HERESY! Quick get the wolfbane! Where's my garland of garlic? Find a Priest quick, we need to exorcise this fellow before he sins again!

[Stacheldraht]

I don't think it's a question of people having a hard time with 3D games per se, as they're prevalent on PC's and all the consoles (even the Game Boy Advance has 3D games). I think the point is that many RTS gamers are used to the classic 2D style (and the game design basics that usually go with that hand in hand) in the RTS genre and don't like change. Too bad, as some of the greatest RTS games, like Homeworld, have been 3D.

[gunnergoz]

Yeah, but us old farts need games we can play too...sniff, sniff

I play occasional RTS stuff like Cossacks or the like, but they can't hold a candle to the entertainment value of CM.

Homeworld was indeed brilliant and beautiful, but after a session with it I was drenched with sweat and as worn out as I get at work. Not my idea of fun!

Age may have something to do with it but it is also likely a matter of personality and preference.

CM has the best balance I've found of playability and strategic challenge since I played the original X-Com (now THERE was a game for it's day). Better yet, CM is about WW2 which is my special pet topic.

I just want the industry to have a balance so we can all get our jollies!

[Pzman]

lol

[David Aitken]

I noticed I didn't have any threads about realtime in my link archive, so I skimmed through the search engine (it works well, it just takes a few minutes to process) and came up with these:

Why not real-time?

Why not make Real-Time?

REAL TIME OPTION ADDON FOR CM/2

[Fieldmarshall]

HERATIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Leave this place before you are burned at the stake! They had better not make any CM a RTS because I think in the end sudden strike and dune they are all the same game, just different movies, BTS made the CM series to get us out of the rut and if they make an RTS they ruin their independant nature and they become another boring game in the anals of history.

-Niles "Fieldmarshall" Hirschi :mad: :mad:

[Triumvir]

Honestly, I don't see the problem with making CM continuous time. A WEGO system naturally falls out of a continuous time system. Allow each user to set the time intervals between order phases to 1 minute and hey presto you have CM as it currently is.

People who complain that you have to slow down the game to fit each person's needs and then perform a reductio ad absurdum miss the point that most people will be happy at perhaps a 30 second interval between orders.

Me, I'd rather 2-5 minutes between orders phase with more elaborate orders (move to that woods, take up ambush positions 30 m into the woods, after 45 seconds, squad c rush to the next woods while a and b give overwatch), but so long as the orders are given, I don't really see why BTS can't change the calculation period. Longer hands-off periods require more thinking, and to me at least show more realism, because they let you do what a real commander does -- issue orders, move on, and pray like hell your people know what they're doing.

(And doesn't TacOps use a CTB system? Why not ask the Colonel to help out?)

What's so magical about 60 seconds? Why not 45, 59, 132.5? As any good programmer knows, there are only three numbers in programming; zero, one and many (and one is really a subset of many because if you can run something once, you can wrap a loop construct around it.)

On the other hand, I don't want the traditional RTS type system where resource management is key. BTS will never do that, thankfully; but think of Myth, which was a _brilliant_ RTS in 3D that had practically everything in the interface line that we have in CM and that forced you to work with what you had, not sit back and harvest your way to victory.

As for time limits, well, think TCP/IP and how you can set variable time limits.

And above all, the code that runs a CTB system will _naturally_ fall out to run the same CM mechanics that we see now. There really is no doubt about that, since all that we have now is a special case of a CTB system.

[Guy w/gun]

Wow, other than the few posts that are obviously meant jokingly, this is the warmest reception to a RT-CMBO proposel I think I've ever seen!

I agree with most here though, RTS can almost make you work up a sweat. I still play StarCraft now and then, but doing so is pretty tedious. As to the "old farts need a game too" argument, I also agree. I almost gave my 55 year old uncle a brain hemorage showing him Tetris !

[Slapdragon]

Myth is apples and oranges to CM, mostly because its scale is far more narrow than CM and it does not attempt to recreate a realistic enivironment for historical gaming.

The RTS argument is very similar to the argument made to Ford about its Explorer line of cars ten years ago. It was suggested that the explorer have a smaller wheel base, more economical engine, reduce the passenger room, shorten the frame, ease up on the tight suspension, sling it lower to the ground, and make cost cutting measures. The Ford rep listened to this and said, "we have already done this, it is called an Escort."

To mae CM an RTS would require smaller units, smaller boards, abstractions of the graphics engine (such as the artificcial limited horizon used in Myth to keep processing power to a minimum. The AI would need dumbing down since the player will be able to jump in at any time. Hey, sounds like Close Combat already.

As for why 1 minute instead of 59 seconds, that is the silliest thing I have ever heard of, and you can do a search on it. 1 minute is a nice round number that allows a person to direct the action without micromanaging. Any more and the game becomes a fight of AIs, less and you jump in front of the AI that makes the game less a click fest and more an intellectual challenge.

Turn it around, why should CM be a 59 second turn rather than 1 minute?

Basically, CM is a wargame that other types of gamers can enjoy, not a video game that wargamers may like. As such, it falls into a very special realm, with not many competitors. You would be better off asking Bungie for a WW2 version of Myth than BTS for a RTS version of CM.

Of course, this is all moot since BTS wont violate their principals on these matters. You can see this with the national modifiers, German ubertanks, and this subject. RTS has said maybe twice a month for two years that CM is a war game and not a shoot and twitch game, and there is no way to keep a game of its scale from becoming a click fest. Possibly by changing the scope to platoon level it would work, and limited the board to a few hundred meters, but otherwise you would loose what makes CM CM, loose it core audience of war gamers, and still not make the shoot and twitch gang happy because then they would ask for Oni like graphics, ray tracing, and joy stick control mapping.

[imported_Kampfgruppe_Commander]

IF YOU WANT REALISM IN CM, THEN JOIN THE NEXT TEAM RUMBLE. THE PAUSE FOR ORDERS GIVING SIMULATES THE FACT THAT A BATTALION COMMANDER DOES NOT DO ANY OF THE INDIVIDUAL ORDERS ON HIS OWN; THAT IS WHAT SUBORDINATES ARE FOR. SINCE CM IS PLAYED BY ONE PLAYER ONLY, YOU WILL NEVER EVER HAVE REALISM. HENCE THE REALITY OF THE TEAM RUMBLE.

[imported_Kampfgruppe_Commander]

I MEAN REALLY, HOW WOULD MAKING CM A "RTS" MAKE IT ANY MORE "REAL"?

HOW DO YOU DEFINE REAL?

DID CHARLES MACDONALD JUST CLICK A BUNCH OF BUTTONS REALLY FAST AND WIN WORLD WAR TWO THAT WAY?

Kind of doubt it.

[Triumvir]

Slapdragon, with all due respect, you're talking utter, arrant nonsense.

CM's scale was, as far as I recall, originally no larger than Myth -- I remember Steve saying that they never expected battles larger than 1500pts to be fought, which is why there is no vehicle command system.

To say that Myth does not attempt to recreate a realistic environment for historical gaming evades the point that even the most realistic environment is an abstraction and both Myth and CM are abstractions. Yes, Myth uses hitpoints etc, so ridiculous results can occur. But that doesn't mean that lessons can't be learnt from it.

Apples and oranges are both fruit.

Your RTS argument is very different from mine; My argument is that you should be able to take an Explorer and convert it if necessary, at will, into an Escort. You can do that with code.

(BTW, isn't comparing code and cars even more outlandish than comparing apples and oranges? You can't change cars on the fly, but you can write code to change itself on the fly.)

I've suggested that the player(s) can set the time between order phases _before the game begins_. Hardly different from the current hard-coded 60 seconds.

As for 1 minute vs 59 seconds, why not 120 seconds? 30 seconds? Why should you have a single minute turn, in other words, when you can do calculations for _any_ granular amount of seconds? If you set the time interval before starting the game, why not allow any amount?

Okay, so you can restrict things to often-used numbers, but the fact remains that there is no privileged reason to stick with 60 seconds a turn.

Honestly, I think you're engaging in ridiculous amounts of kneejerk rhetoric. "It works, don't change it! don't change it! or it'll all go to hell!" sounds to me exactly like some of the traders I've worked with who simply cannot function if one of their graph windows is closed.

Or are you seriously suggesting that one of BTS's core principles is not to allow any kind of turn resolution less than or more than 60 seconds?

Oni like graphics? Ray tracing? Good God in heaven, what is the world coming to, etc. What horrible things for me to ask (not that I've asked for them.)

All I've suggested is that instead of setting a single hard coded value of 60 seconds for calculation, before the game starts you allow the player(s) to agree on the number of seconds between each order phase -- and that you allow the player to set a time limit on order phases.

Please, I'm not a sixteen year old script kiddie who thinks that RTSs are 1337; I'm a programmer who has made a suggestion which on the face of it seems reasonable for BTS to implement without rewriting their engine. I've played wargames for nigh on fifteen years, from Squad Leader (not ASL, which I could never love) to War In Russia. Please don't try to slap the twitchfest label on me (and if you think that RTSs or FPSs are twitchfests, you obviously haven't played enough of them.)

[Major Tom]

I think that most of the reaction to RTS is that the present assumption by most gamers is that if it is not RTS, then it sucks.

Turn based games were just about all that was offered when computers were new. They could not offer as much complexity if it was real time, so it was slated to turned based.

However, as computers go faster and faster, games can be more and more complex. RTS is more possible than before, with more complexity. However, just because RTS is there, and can be complex, does NOT mean that turn based games are obsolete.

Take Chess. One could devise the game to be RTS through complicated rules, and a processing system. However, many people like chess for its plodding and slow, and critical thinking that it offers. RTS does result in developing strategy, however, many people like Turn Based games because they are pure strategy, like chess.

Making something RTS, or the option of RTS is not supposed to be an obvious evolution of all games. Turn based games still have a following, even with new gamers (so it isn't just a bunch of old people!).

Just go to any RTS game board and mention that you want a Turn Based option for the game and you will get arguments against it from just about everyone. One is not necessarily better than the other, just different. Having a RTS option for CM2 would require BTS to totally rehash the mechanizm of the game. It might not be less complicated (ie. you probably could process a significant number of attributes as the Turn Based game) but the mechanizm would require tweaking as to issue orders while the turn is in motion. Possibly later incarnations of CM will be RTS, but without significant precidence from other RTS games, Steve and Charles cannot afford to risk to break another barrier.

Personally, I see CM as a RTS Turn Based Hybrid. You issue the orders on the turn, then see the orders go out in Real Time. Your units then decide their own orders in response to situations. For CM to be RTS you would remove the option of your units reacting, while you can just stop whenever and issue your own orders immediately (sort of like Star Wars: Rebellion).

If there is no pause, or slow turn then things like the 3D zoom and rotation would serve to confuse the player, resulting in the game being a fixed view like most RTS games are.

While playing CM, when the game stars getting heavy with a lot of things happening along the map, I routinely watch a single 60 second turn 4-6 times. If it was Real Time, then this option would be impossible. The turn based system that CM presently offers results in a game that may take weeks to play, while most RTS games are over in a night.

The real time option would result in an extreme amount of work on the part of BTS to get right. The request for Real Time options for CM have been constant, yet only by a small minority of the visiting or residing population. The population might grow if the game became Real Time, with BTS making more sales, but they appear to be happy enough catering to the population who still desires to have a turn based game, with a good AI and good graphics requiring high strategy. RTS may not turn into a clickfest, but much of the strategy of a turn based game will be lost in the confusion.

[Triumvir]

But why not a CTB system like we have now with finer granularity than 1 minute? I agree with you, "Real-Time" is not the way for CM to go. It forces both players to run on the same clock, which is not necessarily good.

(Although there's the analogy of speed chess, which I love, where you play a game in under 5 minutes.)

Incidentally, one of the oldest ways to make chess continuous turn is to write down moves before-hand and then execute them simultaneously; two units entering the same space simultaneously are both removed.

[Pzman]

WHY do we keep bring this topic up again and agin when BTS has said every time that they wouldn't be making CM into an RTS anytime soon. If at all.