sneaking up with the knife

[Chad Harrison]

i know i always come up with little annoying ideas, and so i dont want to break my trend!

yes weve all seen it in the movies, but those movies were based on reality. i know we are going to see some major changes in the CM2 engine, but when can we sneak up from behind and get them with the knife before they hollar and shoot at everything? it odd to have your elite paratroopers sneak up on a conscript squad, at night with fog, and have them always spot you before you get close.

why not give them a chance to sneak up and eliminate the unit through nice clean and quiet close combat (knifes, rifle butts, bayonets, forks, spoons for the eyes, that kind of stuff)? obviously your chance for success would be determined by both squads experience, command bonus's, weather (night, fog, rain, who couldnt get that close?!?), and a random factor. i know it would not be common place, but sometimes we either get a lucky opportunity, or it would fit a situation (airborne troops on D-Day).

what do you all think? :confused:

[Madmatt]

That idea is interesting but it is much too minute' in detail for the overall scope of Combat Mission which is really designed for Company engagements and larger.

Besides, in order to properly sneak up on a sentry would take several minutes to prepare (to get the sentries patrol pattern down) and then a few more minutes to stealthly approach and dispatch the guard. DO you really want to play a game where for 10 tunrs in a row you watch a single guy walk around when you could instead be blowing up tanks and stuff?!?

Not gonna happen my friend.

Madmatt

[Chad Harrison]

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

Besides, in order to properly sneak up on a sentry would take several minutes to prepare (to get the sentries patrol pattern down) and then a few more minutes to stealthly approach and dispatch the guard. DO you really want to play a game where for 10 tunrs in a row you watch a single guy walk around when you could instead be blowing up tanks and stuff?!?

Not gonna happen my friend.

Madmatt<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

very good point Madmatt. it would take that time to observe all those things, and that is out of the scale of this game. but it sure would be cool to have a elite unit be able to take out an entire squad and have the opponet only see one of his squads suddenly disappear! thanks for the comment madmatt.

[Dirtweasle]

maybe it explains why i get whacked out in so many PBEM games, but I sometimes do spend 10 turns sneaking a few guys around...

[JasonC]

If you want to simulate commando ops, try this. Give the attackers crack qualities, perhaps with a few elite thrown in for particular roles (snipers e.g.). Give the defender's green quality for rear area troops, regular for others. Make the fight take place at night.

Next, fix the set up of most of the defenders, "orange" "padlock" style, with a few areas for set up as desired for a barracks or what-not (small area of 100x100 meters, say, for one or another portion of the defenders). Put landmarks on the map and inform the attacker in the briefing the expected strength and locations of defenders - with whatever level of quality for that intel you desire.

Next, give the attacker set up areas that are all over the map, all through the defended locations, as long as they aren't physically on top of them. Only exclude them from locations that you can see the sentries would cover by sight at night. Maybe there is a compound with free set up for one defended platoon (the above 100x100 area e.g.).

Then the attackers can set up, say, everywhere not within 40 meters of that location, except for exact tiles the orange fixed defenders are on. Notice, the fixed tiles can be made known to the attacker as "holes" in his allowed set up areas, if you like.

The first minute could easily see quite a few instances of "sneaking up", in the sense of defenders finding crack squads of attackers ~20 meters away and moving toward them from the 5th second on, perhaps while they are facing in the wrong direction, etc.

The sneaking is done beforehand and its effects are shown in the set up, in other words. The actual fight begins with the first trigger pull. The scenario could be quite short, 5-10 turns. The attacker should have to plan out the results beforehand, carefully, if he expects to succeed against odds and in the limited time available.

Also, try playing out the resolution from ground level view, as per the "ironman" rules. For short, small scenarios that is a realistic option. The confusion level could get quite realistic for the defender...

[David Aitken]

This type of thing doesn't work in CM. You're talking about despatching a couple of unwary sentries, not dealing with whole combat-ready squads, which is what you get in CM. Moreover, units in CM do not act stealthily by default, and will happily open up on any available target.

This brings us back to what Charles says about the way CM is programmed – everything you see has to be specifically designed to work the way it does. CM is designed as a combat simulator, not a commando simulator. Troops will shoot first and ask questions later.

[russellmz]

i hate those a--holes who try and get knife kills in counterstrike. once i was shooting at this one guy when my teammate is behind him. instead of pumping rifle rounds into him, he sneaks up on him with the knife. by the time he gets there the bad guy had killed me. i can't count the number of times a guy could easily shoot another and pulls out his knife, then gets shot while trying to knife him. just use a gun foo!

[Capitalistdoginchina]

A game like "hidden & Dangerous" would fullfil your desire - The best atmosphere in a WW2 1st person game i have ever seen/heard/felt - no comparison to CM of course And you get to sneak up and knife Jerries, stealth was an important part of the planning to accomplish each mission.

I heard that the sequel to this excellent commando game will be released later this year - H&D 2. Even though the original had frustrating bugs i will still get H&D 2 because i enjoyed the original game immensely.

Regards

CDIC

[Bobbaro]

MadMatt:

"DO you really want to play a game where for 10 tunrs in a row you watch a single guy walk around when you could instead be blowing up tanks and stuff?!? ;)"

Well, if that single guy or team

quietly removes a crew served weapon,

or HQ unit from an inconvient location

I would not complain too much. Besides,

already we do not find any other single

aspect of the game forcing us to watch

that take place, while all else sits

idle.

"Not gonna happen my friend."

Well, lets not get too set in our ways.

the impossible just takes a little

longer. At least sometimes.

I find a mind set sometimes applied to CM that even does not pay much attention to some

of its existing capabilites -- like the one that hardly recognises that it is able to

handle scenrios that last more than 30 minutes or take place on other than a small or medium battlefield in CM terms. Such a mind set will not often entertain some possibilites, and justifies it by confining its arguements to 30 minute scenarios on a no larger than medium map and current game engines either existing or under construction. There is no reason that CM can not grow in depth as well as in breadth. Already, the upcoming CMBB is achieving that.

This has a practical aspect in terms of what's going to happen or not, sometmes. But it is a small mind that can not be inspired by the breakthrough that CM has achieved and do some specific dreamy wishful thinking. Afterall, without that element CM would not have been created.

We do have sharpshooters, we do have FO teams

and crews and half squads. Two man outpost- point teams could also be included with this

concept at some future point without going too far afield from what we already have. Sure this is already abstracted into the present squad system spotting system to a degree, but greater specificity means greater immersion and tactical interest. A half squad could be halved again for this purpose. With this capability even greater realism could be injected into play.

I can't see why MadMatt should be quite so prima facie negagive other than he has already fully expended all his reserve imaginagion on a plate that is already overflowing. Perhaps this ungenerous. It is easy to be that way standing on the sidelines. But, if standing on the sidelines has some built in pitfalls, so does being so immersed in the midst of the fray. I am only speculating not judgeing.

I think if I were being harrassed by a mob with the size and variety of the participants of this Forum in addition to whatever else MadMatt has going on, I might tend to close out a certain amount of noise myself.

[chrisl]

Some of the features requested in the original post can and do actually occur in CM (sort of), but they're rare for some of the reasons described as to why they shouldn't be there. If a unit encounters enough force to eliminate it quickly, the owner of the eliminated unit won't know anything other than that his unit was zapped.

It first happened to me all the way back in the gold demo: I had a half-squad (maybe it was full) sneak over a small hillock and quite literally disappear. It turned out later that 3/4 or so of the men were casualties, and the rest captured. There was no indication of what caused it, and I continued to suffer casualties when I tried to get past there without spotting any enemy for a long time.

In a few other instances I've had units essentially vaporized with no indication of the cause. It's more likely to happen when it's night, or foggy, or both. On a clear day that sort of thing isn't so likely, but in the fog you can lose a lot of units before getting any idea of the cause. Higher quality units are more likely to cause such things to your enemy, as well.

I know it isn't precisely what was requested, but given the scope of CM: squad level representation of combat, with the basic unit of maneuver the platoon, and the capacity to play regiment sized battles, it's probably represented at about the right level. Unless you're playing the smallest possible battle, the idea of sneaking around and zapping the sentries isn't really necessary--if they're out in the woods where you're sneaking the troops through, then it's abstracted away. You can sneak a company or more up pretty close the MLR in many cases, and there were probably a few of phantom sentries killed/captured in the process. There's just no need to represent them, since they probably didn't have a radio or phone anyway.

[ 08-10-2001: Message edited by: chrisl ]

[Tero]

The fundamental, underlying problem is absolute spotting. You can sneak all you want and you may even take an enemy unit by surprise but once your unit gets spotted every enemy unit knows exactly where you are and what you carry.

Sneaking isn't, by design.

I like the idea of taking down isolated enemy outposts with a minumum of fuss (a few shots/short bursts of SMG fire and some grenades). It would even be in CM scope of combat at squad level.

But alas a unit can not go off the air without out a trace.The enemy Borg knows what happened instantly.

[boy_Recon]

Try "Operation Flashpoint", you get sneakage, squad level combat from a FPS perspective; you can fly aircraft, drive tanks,command your squad. you can even play co-op or death-match stylee with your chums. CM hasn't been out of my CD drive since i got it last year, but now it's neck and neck with Opflash.

[Chad Harrison]

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

Sneaking isn't, by design.

I like the idea of taking down isolated enemy outposts with a minumum of fuss (a few shots/short bursts of SMG fire and some grenades). It would even be in CM scope of combat at squad level.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

this is the point i was getting to. in the game sneaking just means "keep your eyes open and the finger over the trigger". no im not complaining, but i think this game neads a "stealth command".

the more i have thought about it, that would fit into the scope of the game. how often have we played at night and wanted a way to take out that ONE half squad in no mans land without giving away the position of our flanking platoon? yes there is a chance that he will not be able to identify you, but that has never been my luck. also, that doesnt mean that you have spent ten minutes setting this up (which is something that i think would be fun anyways!), its just that the situation presented itself.

all in all, i would like to see a way to actually sneak into hand to hand combat in the right conditions. this is near impossible as is currently modeled, and for any size engagement, this would be both realistic and usefull. just becuase your only one platoon of a company/battalion doesnt mean you have to run every where you go blasting everything giving your postion away. lets give our game a little more flavor . . .