See the map before you buy units

[Annalist]

I'd like to be able to see the battle map, actually a topographic rendering of it before I bought my units. Any commander worth his salt, given the opportunity, would tailor his force to the mission and terrain. The Army teaches this using the acronym METT-T (Mission, Enemy, Terrain and weather, Troops, Time available. Viewing the map beforehand would let you analyze the terrain using another method, OCOKA (Obstacle, Cover and Concealment, Observation and fields of fire, key terrain and avenues of approach.) Just give me a grid map with elevation lines, some terrain type colors, road and buildings marked (similar to what the army uses in real life). You could use the highest over head view and just add elevation lines...that would be nice.

[Polar]

Actually.... any commander worth his salt would have very little say in what assets he had for any given battle... not a commander on the scale of CM anyway.

Joe

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"I had no shoes and I cried, then I met a man who had no socks." - Fred Mertz

[Annalist]

Not true, when you're buying units, you're playing the role of the next higher unit commander. He's drawing on organic units, attachments and OPCON (operational control) units. You would definitely know, as a battalion commander, what you could send into a company sector. You may not have all you want, but you can send stuff you have that's tailored to the situation. Not having all you want is simulated by the point limits.

[CavScout]

Originally posted by Annalist:

I'd like to be able to see the battle map, actually a topographic rendering of it before I bought my units. Any commander worth his salt, given the opportunity, would tailor his force to the mission and terrain. The Army teaches this using the acronym METT-T (Mission, Enemy, Terrain and weather, Troops, Time available. Viewing the map beforehand would let you analyze the terrain using another method, OCOKA (Obstacle, Cover and Concealment, Observation and fields of fire, key terrain and avenues of approach.) Just give me a grid map with elevation lines, some terrain type colors, road and buildings marked (similar to what the army uses in real life). You could use the highest over head view and just add elevation lines...that would be nice.

While METT-T and OCOKA are nice and all, the commander is going to have to make do with what he has. Commanders wouldn't get a mission, a map and then a catalogue to pick their units.

[Polar]

A REAL commander would have had to slowly uncover the map while he slowly collected various minerals from the surrounding country side and research his units... only THEN would he be able to build his tanks!

I still haven't been able to find ore deposits or gas vents in CMBO... they expect me to win these battles with just 1000 points of production?!?

Joe

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"I had no shoes and I cried, then I met a man who had no socks." - Fred Mertz

[Annalist]

Allow me some sarcasm...Wow, no catalog to pick units from in real life? No kidding, been there done that in real life. What you do have to pick from is a collection of organic units and various attachments. That's simulated, again, by the purchase point limits. Given a list of units to choose from, that are part of your force, you would tailor the force in the sector according to mission, the enemy unit and the terrain. Its really a pretty simple concept. I'f I'm an infantry battalion commander with an attached platoon or company of tanks and some attached brigade artillery(spotter) then I'll assign more armor to the terrain and enemy where it will do the most good versus sticking it in the heavily wooded sector where all they can shoot are trees.

[gaffertape]

I know some people who have created their own balanced maps which they e-mail prior to the game. Both sides can study the map, then one person opens it up in the editor, adds his units up to a negotiated point unit and resaves it. He sends this to his opponent who opens it in his editor and adds his units (without peeking at his opponents units). He resaves it, and starts it as an email game.

So there are options.

GAFF

[Guest Mirage2k]

While a Battalion commander has some leeway in terms of what he sends to a company sector, he isn't presented with the myriad of choices available in the force selection screens. He wouldn't be able to pick from all of those vehicles, for example.

-Andrew

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"No, it's not that kind of relationship. We're just friends. We are together all the time, but I never touch her porcelain skin, her soft, red lips, like rose petals from the emperor's bathwater! Bathwater, I tell you, bathwateeeeeeer!"

[Spook]

Actually, I think that Annalist's proposal has some merit, and we shouldn't be overly dismissive yet. From his first post:

Just give me a grid map with elevation lines, some terrain type colors, road and buildings marked (similar to what the army uses in real life). You could use the highest over head view and just add elevation lines...that would be nice.

Something along these lines could have some potential; some version of a 2-D map (with NO ability to zoom into 3-D) which only conveys basic information on major terrain features and a road net. Heck, even with a "fog of war" switch, perhaps a little erroneous terrain might be thrown in (or in an erroneous location).

However, recognizing the counter-view that having such a map for QB setup could lead to some gamey "cherry-picking" force selections, some constraints would have to be in place in what could be purchased, or how much of it. Perhaps it could be required that some historical TO&E's company/battalion be purchased first before getting to see the map. And then with later access to the speculative 2-D map, final choices on unit purchases could be allowed.

This all sounds a bit(?) messy, so this is offered as a speculative concept only.

[Oddball_E8]

Actually i have been an ipartial party in a game where one player made the map... sent it to the other player who looked at it... then they sent it to me with their purchased units (that is 2 maps... one with the allies purchased one with the axis... ok) then i compiled the data into one map and made a secure save (dont remember what its called) and sent it to the player who had the first turn... (as a pbem file of turn one... so no cheating)

it worked out fine

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Wof, wof, wof, wof... Thats my other dog imitation.

[Guest Andrew Hedges]

What if the game could just tell you in general terms what the terrain was like, using descriptive terms like "light trees," "gentle slopes," and "rural?"

Wouldn't that give you enough information to intelligently pick your forces?

[CavScout]

I think defenders should, perhaps, get a look at the map because they would have been likely sitting on it preparing for the defense. Other than that, I don't think so.

[Slapdragon]

Originally posted by Andrew Hedges:

What if the game could just tell you in general terms what the terrain was like, using descriptive terms like "light trees," "gentle slopes," and "rural?"

Wouldn't that give you enough information to intelligently pick your forces?

Actually it does in the setup. I am not against a look at an abstract map, but I am just curious about the ability of a Regimental / Battalion commander to plug in forces of his choosing at the last minute. For example:

Patton say take Metz

Gaffenburg says attack the left flank of that town

Morgan looks at his forces for his regiment. Then he drives over to the battlefield and sees that there are these little culverts. Ahhhh, glider squads with their SMGs would work much nicer. So he calls up Patton. "I need Glider squads instead of my infantry."

I am not saying that the Regimental commander has no choice, or that unit selection is the ultimate expression of historical reality, but that you just can't swap your units towed AT guns just because the next three days you will be fighting in an area that you had not expected.

I am for more randomness. Like making the town, rural, farm, village settings, the attack and defense settings, the time of years settings, and everything random. Then you get to the purchase screen, and find out if you are attacking or defending and in what month without any idea of the rest -- snow village woods mountain, etc. You are forced to put together a unit that will stand up to anything, and so is the other guy.

[Bruno Weiss]

If your negotiating a dialog with a potential opponent, always a good thing to do, then you should already have, or can have that general terms information with which to base some conclusions on. As Andrew said, light, moderate, heavy trees, rolling, heavy hills, village, farmland, etc. Which, is about what some of the discussion is asking for. It's not a map, but a very general high resolution, non-descript map wouldn't provide much more info than that, and talking with an opponent can get you that much. It's just not ready made in electronic form. Personally, I like the idea of not knowing in detail what is coming. Besides, as revealed in another thread recently, at least one of the players (the initiator), can have a peek at the map before the game if they want to stoop to it. That, I hope, will get fixed.

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"Gentlemen, you may be sure that of the three courses

open to the enemy, he will always choose the fourth."

-Field Marshal Count Helmuth von Moltke, (1848-1916)

[This message has been edited by Bruno Weiss (edited 01-23-2001).]

[Robert Mayer]

It all depends on where you see the player being in the chain of command I suppose. True, a company commander fights where he's told, and you simulate his deployment decisions with the setup phase, where he looks over the terrain he's assigned to attack or defend and deploys his forces.

But, in the battle creation phase, you do pick the units. It's reasonable to assume that a higher echelon commander would take the terrain into account when assigning units to a sector. If, for instance, I command a regiment, and I'm told to take a town, I'll look at what I have and try to make sure my armor is committed where it'll do the most good, and my infantry where it'll work best, etc. That decision does include looking at the terrain--I'm not likely to commit my tanks to the deep woods if I can help it.

Come to think of it, though, if you buy relatively balanced and realistic forces, you have a lot less trouble with different terrain types than if you min/max the game and buy only ubertanks or special-purpose units, eh?

[jshandorf]

Gah! Why are you all bickering over something that Steve has covered a hundred times over?

In essence Steve has said that as a commander you WOULD have some idea of the battle field, BUT if you were able to view the map it would provide a 1000 times more information than you would actually be privy to in real life. Thus the didn't put that feature in.

Jeff

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First of all, David, you stupid sot, if names were meant to be descriptive, everyone would have the, culturally appropriate, name of, "Ugly little purple person that cries and wets itself." -Meeks.

[Slapdragon]

I remember Anthony Herbert, the most decorate soldier in Korea, talking at my college about trainee infantry commanders. They would look at the map, do all the stuff they needed to do before moving out, then they would head for the "battlefield". Once there the young officers would often wander the whole of their front, positioning each man, and taking several hours to make a hasty defense while smiling instructors looked on happily that each T was crossed and i dotted.

Then those commander get into combat. They have 15 minutes to dig in under sniper fire for a defense that they were taught to take 3 hours to prepare. Their map is wrong, a stream runs through their position and it is not on the map, while no one told him the ground was full of stones, forcing his units to dig in in another place. Everytime he lifts his head up above a crouch, a sniper no one can find tries to shoot it. His scouts come back and say they met MG fire trying to scout the valley, and could not get a good look around the ridge line. Air recon says mark your position, and he pops a smoke. They cannot see it, so he pops another. They see it, its a red smoke. Only you popped yellow. Maybe it is the sunlight as they describe your situation. The first sergeant tells you that the GPMG team displaced 20 meters to get a better veiw of a trail to the right. Your map has no trail on the right. Then the enemy starts its attack and its too late to see what that trail is.

[Pak40]

It would be nice and realistic if there was a 2-D map of the battlefield, either topographical or not.

Charles MacDonald, in Company Commander, mentioned the maps that he received before moving into the line. This proves that officers had maps of their area, even down to the platoon leader if I remember correctly.

BUT, I do understand that it would be a great programming feat to produce a topo map made from a 3-D QB map.

HOW ABOUT THIS IDEA:

Maybe BTS could show a Birds eye view of the 3D battlefield (without letting the player move around). This would let players see the battlefield from a plan veiw before they picked forces. It will let the player see the general layout of the land, major hills, clumps of trees, buildings and roads but not all of the detail like walls, gentel hills, hedges, etc...

[Jarhead]

A Battalion/Company commander in the Marine Corp, and other militaries around the world (I would assume) has options available to him in the form of the organic weapons company/platoon. I feel in CM picking your Infantry, Armor, artillery support, and vehicles before seeing the map should remain as it is. However "support" assets should be chosen after seeing the map. This would simulate the Bat/Co commander requesting said assets after seeing his situation. IMO this would be a more realistic approach to tailoring your force to the map. Now...that said, I have no idea how hard it would be to accomplish it.

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Semper Fi.

[This message has been edited by Jarhead (edited 01-23-2001).]

[Pak40]

Jarhead, good idea. seems logical to me.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Slapdragon:

I remember Anthony Herbert, the most decorate soldier in Korea, talking at my college about trainee infantry commanders

OT here, but - I read with interest Herbert's book SOLDIER. I liked it; everyone else I know dismisses it as self serving garbage. Do you have an opinion.

BTS did answer my comments about why we can't see the map before hand in another thread. I think this is what jshandorf is trying to say in his inimitable style. Patience, dude, these threads get bured pretty fast.

[Brian Rock]

The tricky thing with making QBs realistic is that QBs are inherently unrealistic.

I think Slapdragon puts his finger on the problem:

Morgan looks at his forces for his regiment. Then he drives over to the battlefield and sees that there are these little culverts. Ahhhh, glider squads with their SMGs would work much nicer. So he calls up Patton. "I need Glider squads instead of my infantry."

If QBs only offered a limited TO&E - say you had a 44 Inf Battalion - then you could argue the player is taking on the role of battalion CO during the planning phase.

In reality the player is given a catalogue of the entire army ("Build your own OOB! It's easy!").

There is nothing other than personal aesthetics to stop a player from adding in bizarre combinations. Personally I usually try to create historical formations - but sometimes I do like to create killer units too.

Now having said all that, I wouldn't mind a variant on QBs - where players were given a TO&E for a single battalion and allowed to mix and match.

But then you need to address issues over whether either player had sight of the map or not (maybe a toggle), and how good those maps were (MacDonald may have (usually? often? sometimes?) had maps, but not all COs did, and sometimes they were simply wrong). You also have to consider that the forces on the day were often a fraction of those on paper, and how to handle cross-attachments.

In short, I don't think it's a simple fix, and can't see it going into CMBO. Too much work to do it properly, and every day Charles spends adding something to CM is another day he doesn't spend coding CM2.

If something like this was going to happen it would be a CM2 candidate. My advice is work the design out to the Nth degree and lobby like crazy when the CM2 suggestions start coming in.

[Guest Big Time Software]

Pak40 wrote:

Charles MacDonald, in Company Commander, mentioned the maps that he received before moving into the line. This proves that officers had maps of their area, even down to the platoon leader if I remember correctly.

True, and this is exactly what you get when you are in the Setup Phase. Even more, you can fly around the terrain and know with 100% what is what and where. McDonald had no such luxury.

What McDonald wasn't able to do was look at a particular feature on the map, cash in all his MMGs for 60mm Mortars, and then refuse to go forward until he got 155mm support and at least 2 support Sherman 105s all because of the terrain layout. And if the hills and woods were different he wouldn't have been able to think up some other great combo of units customized for that particular battlefield.

Folks... this is just plain, straight forward unrealistic. In fact, picking your forces to begin with is also unrealistic. But hey, it is fun so we allow the player that option (CM can also do it for you). So arguing that CM allows you to do something unrealistic ,so we should allow you to do something different that is unrealistic, does not make the game more realistic overall.

The degree of "tailoring" for a mission is very limited at the Company level. For special and critical actions, the degree of "tailoring" goes up. But for the average, day to day, slug it from Point A to Point B, a Company sized force doesn't have time or possibilities for customization to the degree possible if the map is show ahead of time.

The parameters for the map give the player plenty of info to make unit purchase. Far more realistically than if the map were shown. Dense Forest, extra hilly, and damp conditions? Don't bother squandering your resources on big tanks. Urban battle in the rain and fog? Better bring a lot of extra troops. So on and so on.

So no. There will be no changes to the system in CM2 other than letting Player 2 know what Player 1 picked for options before play starts. All issues of development time (which are significant) are moot because we do not support the value of adding more information.

Steve

[Annalist]

Every one of you totally missed the point. Of course a company wouldn't go shopping through the battalion arms room and say I'm gonna trade all my .30 cals for 60mm mortars. The battalion commander would, though, say, "hey Bob, I want you to take this town on this here map. Open ground surrounds it for a long way so I'm gonna give you some armor to provide suppressive fire while your infantry company approaches the town. Now do you get it. If you've been in the military and know how these things work, feel free to contribute. If not, shut the HELL up.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Annalist:

Every one of you totally missed the point. Of course a company wouldn't go shopping through the battalion arms room and say I'm gonna trade all my .30 cals for 60mm mortars. The battalion commander would, though, say, "hey Bob, I want you to take this town on this here map. Open ground surrounds it for a long way so I'm gonna give you some armor to provide suppressive fire while your infantry company approaches the town. Now do you get it. If you've been in the military and know how these things work, feel free to contribute. If not, shut the HELL up.

And would this infantry battalion commander simply pull a tank company out of his ass? No offence, man, but it sounds like you're the one with the problem understanding things. The question has been asked and answered. Let's please move on.

Incidentally, I would like to know how many German battalions in World War Two actually fought (gasp) WITHOUT armour support. Panzer units made up what - 10% of the Army as a whole? Seems to me that entire divisions did their jobs with only small assault gun units, or no armour at all. Again, speaking from the Canadian perspective, there were many major engagements fought without armour at all. Second Canadian Division fought for a month in the area Hoogerheide-Kortevan-South Beveland-Walcheren Causeway and I do believe most of the actions were purely infantry.