C&C cmx2 Fireteam Control

[Wartgamer]

A major 'bone' from the 1:1 thread is that player C&C level will be at the 'squad' level. The game will break up squads into fireteams (according to historical tactics) and attempt to carry out the orders under TACAI control.

My take on this is that small sub-squad units, like bazooka/LMG/sharpshooter, will also be TACAI controlled somehow. They may be attached to Company/platoon HQ or even to squads.

So even though the game is supposedly going to 1:1 represetation of soldiers on the battlefield, player command level is sort of shifting up to the squad level of unit.

I would assume that Tanks, ATG, HMG are all 'squads' as far as this is concerned.

So the player may not artificially optimize target selection in the future. Infantry small arms in particular will target for self preservation lets say rather than for the Borg commands that the player generates.

[ February 22, 2005, 08:02 AM: Message edited by: Wartgamer ]

[RMC]

BTS already addressed much of this.

Control remains at the unit level. If that unit is a squad, so be it. If the unit is a lone sniper, or a HMG and crew of 6 then so be it.

You will have control of these units that are less than a normal squad in size.

The issue is how much or how little control you get over the squads that break into teams because of doctrine and mission.

I think seeing the LMG section of a german squad staying in overwatch while the rifle section advances will be just dandy. The only thing I think that might be of value here is some sort of stance toggle like the RTS games have. The player should be able to select traveling, traveling overwatch or overwatch movement techniques (to use modern US army parlance). The squad should not have to split when they are advancing out of contact. Perhaps this can be handled automatically by the AI, or perhaps by the type of move order given.

[DrD]

Probably by the type of move order. Already the move "advance" is described in the manual as using covering fire and movement by bounds.

What I imagine is that if you give an "advance order" the squad will automatically split with the heavy weapons staying put and directing their attention to the manuever element's destination. Once the manuever element reaches the destination then the firebase element will automatically move to join them, reforming a squad automatically on arrival.

This idea can be taken further. Imagine a "flank attack" movement order which results in a squad splitting into 2 with each element approaching the destination from the side, like for clearing a house.

One could even imagine more orders that split a squad futher, but this might result in too many units and too many LOS. It's been said that there will NOT be 1:1 LOS, but what is still murky is how much a squad will be able to be broken down. Just into half squads like now? Or into "quarter" squads ie fireteams?

As far as a stance toggle, it has been hinted that we will have the ability to set ROE for units. Perhaps this will also apply to movement. I think ROE is a great idea, how many time do you wish your scout car would reverse as soon as it sees enemy armor? Again, more movement commands could do the same thing, like a "chicken move" which results in an immediate reversal out of LOS upon contact with the enemy.

[Wartgamer]

CMx2 will still be based around the Squad in terms of control. Fortunately, the behavior of the squad is quite well laid out in Field Manuals (Handbooks, or whatever each nation calls them). They are very specific as to how things are supposed to work in specific situations. This makes AI programming relatively easy. In fact, it is easier to program this stuff than probably anything else the AI has to do. Not that any of this is easy in the sense of not taking time and great skill.

Will Fire Teams always do what they should do in a given situation? Hell no It is up to us to program the prefect simulation of these actions and then allow the circumstances to screw around with them in perhaps unpredictable ways. For example, a really crappy Experienced unit might have the covering team get up and move too early or wait far too late. Or perhaps both will go at the same time. That sort of thing. However, this is the sort of thing that will work generally as it should for most units that have decent training, regardless of other circumstances.

Steve

[RMC]

Originally posted by DrD:

but what is still murky is how much a squad will be able to be broken down. Just into half squads like now? Or into "quarter" squads ie fireteams?

I think Steve's answers have already hinted that this will be nationality dependent. If nation X doctrine called for a base of fire team and a maneuver team that is what we'll get. If that means a 10-man german squad breaks into teams of 7 and 3 then that's how it is. I don't think they want to open it up to players making that call. The sticking point then becomes for odd doctrine like the 12-man US squad with 3 teams and 2 scouts (IIRC). Should the player get to split out the two scouts?

As far as a stance toggle, it has been hinted that we will have the ability to set ROE for units.

ROE sounds like a perfectly suitable way to implement some overarching level of control of a unit.

[Michael Dorosh]

A more likely sticky point would be special situations like house clearing - where a squad would be likely to break down into two man teams, we will have 5 and 6 man rifle groups doing the same thing - potentially exposing themselves to greater hazards than were they able to split "realistically". See my comments in the 1:1 thread. Not sure why Wartgamer decided to start a new thread on this, really, perhaps he felt his viewpoint wasn't being heard fully enough.

[Wartgamer]

Its just not a 1:1 issue really. And it is a major change as I understood it. Some people even would like platoon level commands.

But to be honest, I do not think that anything that is being 'boned' at this point can be taken as a hard bone. It appears that many of the games fundamental elements are still be pondered.

RMC claims that C&C will remain at the sub-squad level. Was that in a thread I missed?

[Wartgamer]

What I imagine is that if you give an "advance order" the squad will automatically split with the heavy weapons staying put and directing their attention to the manuever element's destination. Once the manuever element reaches the destination then the firebase element will automatically move to join them, reforming a squad automatically on arrival.

This is already possible in the game. I do it all the time, split squad, give the half squad with the LMGs a pause order(s) and give the SMG half squad an assault order. Have the LMG half squad followup with an advance order. I do that all the time.

[ February 22, 2005, 01:29 PM: Message edited by: Wartgamer ]

[aka_tom_w]

Originally posted by Wartgamer:

I

RMC claims that C&C will remain at the sub-squad level. Was that in a thread I missed?

I am not sure if your preconceived idea's are clouding your reading or perception or not...

(although it looks that way to me)

Steve said:

"5. The plan is for unit focus (scale) to be flexible, though the tactical focus for the first two CMx2 games is the Squad/Team just as it was for CMx1. This may or may not vary from title to title afterwards, we simply aren't planning that far ahead. Just know that in theory the CMx2 code allows us to keep things a bit flexible.

6. The command level is, like the unit focus, somewhat flexible. However, like CMx1 the first two planned games for CMx2 are Battalion/Company centric.

7. Each soldier has its own 3D representation in the game. For the first two CMx2 games there will not be 1:1 control over these soldiers, but if the scale is lowered for another game 1:1 control is possible (eg. we make a Platoon level game where you only have 30 soldiers, obviously more control is desirable). 1:1 simulation is also desired, but hardware limitations will mean some carefully implemented compromises (i.e. 1:1 LOS checks are impossible). Overall the control should be roughly the same as CMx1, but the abstractions far less."

This is the part that tells me it WILL BE LIKE CMx1 in the area of control:

" Overall the control should be roughly the same as CMx1, but the abstractions far less."

He did say the logic and reasons why you need to split down into teams of 5 from squad of 10 were valid and reasonable in CMx1 and "should" likely be valid and reasonable in CMx2 THUS it does NOT seem unreasonable to me the player WILL have control over split squad if he wants to in CMx2....

BUT that is ONLY my interpretation...

ok?

-tom w

[Wartgamer]

Originally posted by Wartgamer:

CMx2 will still be based around the Squad in terms of control. Fortunately, the behavior of the squad is quite well laid out in Field Manuals (Handbooks, or whatever each nation calls them). They are very specific as to how things are supposed to work in specific situations. This makes AI programming relatively easy. In fact, it is easier to program this stuff than probably anything else the AI has to do. Not that any of this is easy in the sense of not taking time and great skill.

Will Fire Teams always do what they should do in a given situation? Hell no It is up to us to program the prefect simulation of these actions and then allow the circumstances to screw around with them in perhaps unpredictable ways. For example, a really crappy Experienced unit might have the covering team get up and move too early or wait far too late. Or perhaps both will go at the same time. That sort of thing. However, this is the sort of thing that will work generally as it should for most units that have decent training, regardless of other circumstances.

Steve

From this quote, he appears to be saying that commands like 'assault position' will generate fireteams automatically.

It seems the micromanaging that is possible now will be replaced.

But I am just going by what I read. There may have been some other thoughts about this dropped in the 1:1 thread.

[aka_tom_w]

Originally posted by Wartgamer:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Wartgamer:

CMx2 will still be based around the Squad in terms of control. Fortunately, the behavior of the squad is quite well laid out in Field Manuals (Handbooks, or whatever each nation calls them). They are very specific as to how things are supposed to work in specific situations. This makes AI programming relatively easy. In fact, it is easier to program this stuff than probably anything else the AI has to do. Not that any of this is easy in the sense of not taking time and great skill.

Will Fire Teams always do what they should do in a given situation? Hell no It is up to us to program the prefect simulation of these actions and then allow the circumstances to screw around with them in perhaps unpredictable ways. For example, a really crappy Experienced unit might have the covering team get up and move too early or wait far too late. Or perhaps both will go at the same time. That sort of thing. However, this is the sort of thing that will work generally as it should for most units that have decent training, regardless of other circumstances.

Steve

From this quote, he appears to be saying that commands like 'assault position' will generate fireteams automatically.

It seems the micromanaging that is possible now will be replaced.

But I am just going by what I read. There may have been some other thoughts about this dropped in the 1:1 thread. </font>

[Philippe]

What you micro-manage depends pretty much on where you are in the CMx2 development tree. If you're shoving platoons around micromanaging can mean giving orders to individual soldiers (I hope not!). But if you're in the fourth game of the series and exploring brigade level relationships, the game won't work if you're mired in that level of detail because it will simply be too time-consuming to issue your orders for a turn. BFC's two-horned monster is that they're dealing with a potentially sliding scale problem, ranging from reinforced companies in the early games, to who knows what in the later ones. I would expect a certain lack of clarity in their discussions about this, because they themselves probably don't know how much leeway they'll eventually need to have.

So I don't see much of a contradiction in pushing companies around and saying you're 1:1 based on individuals, or pusing brigade-equivalents around and saying you're 1:1 based on platoons. You'd better build some flexibility into the engine to capture the whole range.

I love large scenarios, but never play them. Why? Too many decisions. I want to see divisional-scale battles played out in CM scale, but to attempt to play something like that involves three hours just to give the orders for one turn.

You know that within weeks of CMx2 coming out scenario designers will start to up the scale ante, and we'll all complain that we can't have the Battle of Kursk in the new engine at 1:1, even though our Pentium X's with 100 gigahertz of ram can handle it.

Ambiguity can be a good thing, especially in the begining.

A key question that will determine how effective the upper reaches of the sliding scale will be (if there is even going to be a sliding scale) has to do with identifying the conceptual elements that aren't currently modeled by the system. Fireteams are one of those, but think about how many people in a division don't actually point guns at other people and pull the trigger -- how much of their ultimately combat-critical activity are you going to model? You certainly don't want to fall back on the old boardgame cop-out of attack factor halved if Line of Supply is cut. You don't even want to have a Line of Supply, you want to have 1:1 trained goats pulling tea-carts. You don't have to show them, but for 1:1 they have to be there.

I think the fireteam question is also bedeviled by the differences in national practise. The CW sometimes clear houses two men at a time. But do Germans? Russians? Poles? And what about when they're not clearing houses?

The idea of squads split down to their smallest tactical elements is appealing in a company level game. At a division level it's a nightmare (this is starting to sound like the split squad debate). I think what you do is decide how many orders you can expect someone to give in one turn (probably less than a hundred), decide how far up the scale you want to simulate, and work backwards from there. A hundred fire-teams/vehicles probably implies ten platoons at most, or something like it.

[hoolaman]

Originally posted by Wartgamer:

So the player may not artificially optimize target selection in the future. Infantry small arms in particular will target for self preservation lets say rather than for the Borg commands that the player generates.

A little OT, but I suggested a while ago that targetting be left entirely to the TacAI based upon what it spots (with true relative spotting) and also making use of targetting SOPs.

IRL a unit would be more likely to have fire discipline orders/dispositions (SOPs) and naturally they would only fire upon targets they become aware of themselves. This is opposed to the "psst, over there" effect of manual targetting in CM.

Although this idea produced a heated negative response, Steve actually kind of defended the concept. I wonder if this is on the list for "increased uncertainty for the player" in CMX2.

[DrD]

Originally posted by Wartgamer:

What I imagine is that if you give an "advance order" the squad will automatically split with the heavy weapons staying put and directing their attention to the manuever element's destination. Once the manuever element reaches the destination then the firebase element will automatically move to join them, reforming a squad automatically on arrival.

This is already possible in the game. I do it all the time, split squad, give the half squad with the LMGs a pause order(s) and give the SMG half squad an assault order. Have the LMG half squad followup with an advance order. I do that all the time.

Ah yes, but as is explained on page 98 of the manual, half-squads are more brittle and panic more easily. Furthermore, alot of micromanagement is involved in your approach.

My vision is that the new advance command will work only over short distances, and only if the destination is in LOS. In that case, the squad will split as I've described, and there will be no morale penalty. Maybe even a morale boost since they know they're being covered.

And alot less micromanagemnt, as the squad will split and recombine automatically as part of the move order.

If you want to split a squad outside of these parameters, you can still do so using the old method with its attendant morale hit.

[ February 22, 2005, 02:38 PM: Message edited by: DrD ]

[aka_tom_w]

Originally posted by DrD:

yes

that sounds good to me...

I think that would be an ideal interpretation of how it "should" work.

-tom w

[Wartgamer]

Originally posted by Hoolaman:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Wartgamer:

So the player may not artificially optimize target selection in the future. Infantry small arms in particular will target for self preservation lets say rather than for the Borg commands that the player generates.

A little OT, but I suggested a while ago that targetting be left entirely to the TacAI based upon what it spots (with true relative spotting) and also making use of targetting SOPs.

IRL a unit would be more likely to have fire discipline orders/dispositions (SOPs) and naturally they would only fire upon targets they become aware of themselves. This is opposed to the "psst, over there" effect of manual targetting in CM.

Although this idea produced a heated negative response, Steve actually kind of defended the concept. I wonder if this is on the list for "increased uncertainty for the player" in CMX2. </font>

[Andrew H.]

Originally posted by DrD:

My vision is that the new advance command will work only over short distances, and only if the destination is in LOS. In that case, the squad will split as I've described, and there will be no morale penalty. Maybe even a morale boost since they know they're being covered.

And alot less micromanagemnt, as the squad will split and recombine automatically as part of the move order.

Although the implementation might be quite hairy, I don't think that, conceptually, this is a difficult approach to take, as it can be largely rule based (with room for fuzzy logic, of course).

The actual rule will be based on whatever particular doctrine the country in question used, but assuming that 30 meter "bounds" were common, on turn one, the mobile fireteam would move at advance speed to a point 30 meters ahead while being covered by the lmg team. When the mobile team reached the 30 meter point, it would stop and the lmg team would move up to the same point. This could probably be done in one turn.

If the advance command was to advance 90 meters, the team would inchworm along in 30 meter bounds, taking perhaps 3 turns to reach the objective. And of course if doctrine called for 50 meter bounds, or 100 meter bounds, the squad would inchworm along with that frequency. I suppose the doctrine could be measured in time, too - perhaps the fireteams should rejoin at the end of every turn - which would mean that the travelled distance would vary depending on the terrain.

Fuzzy logic might be necessary so that the units behave more realistically - not stopping just outside or just beyond cover because the cover is located 29 or 31 meters away. And of course less experienced squads will advance in a less organized manner - perhaps taking longer to cover the same distance because they don't have their drill down.

[Wartgamer]

Good points.

In the present game, the penalty should only apply when the split squad was seperated by a distance. Its a bit much that it can be rattled, and when unsplit back to squad form, transfers that rattled to the whole squad.

A good practice is to have a good HQ oversee the split-squad manuver in the present system BTW.

[Battlefront.com]

The player will have complete control (within game conditions, of course) over any individual unit entity. Be that a single man sniper or a 14 man Squad. As far as control is concerned, there is zero difference. Squads, however, are a bit of a special case. Squads generally operate as one unit but with two halves of a whole. While a Platoon can tasks its Squads to do quite different things concurrently, a Squad is generally tasked with doing one thing regardless of how it is internally divided.

The player will control the Squad and the TacAI the individual Fire Teams contained within it. The TacAI actions will be based on national doctrine, the specific conditions, and the commands it has been given to operate under. An "Assault" order in open terrain might lead to one behavior, an "Assault" in closed terrain a slightly different one. Fortunately Field Manuals (Handbooks) are quite clear about what behaviors are to be expected in various conditions, so this bit should be (hahaha) "easy" to do realistically.

Steve

[Wartgamer]

So a Bazooka or a LMG will be, for all intents and purposes, a 'squad' in that it will have the same C&C menu?

Will Squads still be 'split' as a command menu item? Will they then be a C&C unit away from the origional squad?

[flammenwerfer]

Will US squads have an inherent bazooka man?

[Battlefront.com]

If you have a platoon with a HQ, Bazooka, 3 Rifle Squads, and a MMG you will have 6 units under your command. From an interface standpoint, there is no difference beteen any of these. A unit is a unit is a unit.

Squads are, as I've said before, a special case. When you order the Bazooka team you are issuing one command to two guys, each of which will do your bidding (conditions not considered for this example). When you order a Squad you are in effect ordering two individual pieces (or three, depending on national doctrine) to do a single task, such as move to a location. The TacAI handles the details of how those two (or three) pieces go about following your commands.

I am pretty sure we will still allow people to split squads in certain circumstances for specific purposes. As with my statement above, a unit is a unit is a unit. If you split a Squad into two pieces you now have two units, and all that goes along with it.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

Squads will have the ability to utilize specialized weapons, such as a Bazooka. The way it will work is that the Squad has the weapon as a part of its inventory, just like CMx1's Panzerfaust or Rifle Grenades. The player can opt to keep it integrated with the Squad or to section off the Bazooka as a separate Team. In this case, 2 men would depart a 12 man Squad, leaving 10 men in the parent Squad. The 2 men can be returned to its parent Squad at any time (i.e. they don't forget they're riflemen assigned to a specific Squad).

Steve

[Halberdiers]

Developers , it could be possible to transfer individual soldiers from unit to another unit?

I do not talk to join units , nor to transfer weapons , nor to change the rol of the unit or create new units "ad hoc".

For example when the bazooka team is wounded , the players can to transfer 2 soldier from a near squad to the bazooka team, to recover the weapon.

Or the contrary , when the bazooka team do not have more weapons , the soldiers can go to any squad as riflemen.

I repeat,to transfer individual soldiers from one unit to another unit. Soldiers , not weapons. Then you not change the number of units of the Turn. You have the same number of units.

I talk about bazooka team, but the same could be for others support units as machine guns,flamethowers,mortars,etc .

possible ?

[ February 24, 2005, 03:13 PM: Message edited by: Halberdiers ]

[Battlefront.com]

Major weapons, such as Bazookas, Panzerfausts, LMGs, etc. will be transferable. I will not go into any details on this point, other than to say that this will be supported.

Steve