When will the Operational Art of War meet Combat Mission?

[Urban Shocker]

Even if on a small scale similar to human-coordinated battles that have periodically been conducted by CMers (e.g., CMMC, current CMBB by JasonC). Certainly the individual computing power is there. The games that model different levels of military decision making are there from individuals in squads up to division and army level, even grand strategy are there. Why can't the "twain" meet? Why are military game makers stuck in this "rut" or their respective "ruts?"

When I read military history, units retreat because their overwhelmed (or will be) or because a unit somewhere else has given way to the enemy and their access to bullets and beef (lines of communication) has been threatened. Units attack to destroy the enemy's ability to fight by destroying the enemy or by cutting off their means of fighting (bullets and beef).

Combat Mission is a fantastic small unit game but from the above paragraph the only thing we can do is destroy the enemy. Lines of communication are not a part of it and retreating to fight another day is also not worth doing.

I hope that somewhere in BF's 99 year microeconomic plan that they could "hook up" their platoon level game with decision making at higher levels to present armchair commanders with a different layer of decision making to contend with. Then after placing our weakened troops to defend the impassable Ardennes sector we face the prospect of fighting a german armor thrust or retreating, or reinforcing and fighting it out.

Too much to ask?

[JasonC]

Well, TOAW as a system, the actual game, is completely broken, so don't expect it to play any role. It was based on a tower of false premises, the first of which is counting everything can be kept out of the player's view and automated.

One can ask why there aren't more multi-level games (there are some, more on that below). One reason is they involve vastly more player effort. The focus is always going to be on the tactical fights, because an operational layer can't resolve the tactical fights quickly without getting the "dispersion" of results "wrong" from the point of view of the tactical layer. It will always be more predictable - it has fewer factors it can take into account, must aim to get averages right for a wide range of parameters, etc.

Examples of systems that use multiple levels were a few of Tiller's later "Battleground" series Napoleonics, ancient warfare, and fictional empire builders (Total War, fantasy genre semi-ancient battles, space games).

From the other end, some late "monster" board wargames stretched combat resolution procedures to the point where they nearly became tactical layers, though vastly simplified ones. Campaign for North Africa, arguably the most unplayable "monster" ever published, resolved a single on-the-map combat by preliminary artillery fire getting "pin" results on individual battalions, then battalion by battalion ("paired off") defender anti-tank fire, attacker anti-tank fire, then a close combat odds-based resolution, with losses recorded down to a few tanks. Which was just one instance of a towering overcommitment to detail and disregard for the principle of keeping it simple. I once completed a single game turn of the Crusader scenario - I know of no human being who every completed even the shortest full scenario.

No player is in control of such systems, the system plays the player. If you automate it, the computer can do the math but you hide all the actual stuff going on, and the system plays itself as scripted while the players watch. Or they find single min-maxes the designers left as loopholes and the system breaks at its weakest point.

Simplicity and playability are virtues in game design, not faults to avoid. If you want the players wrestling with division level combined arms tasking, they want to know what their likely chances are when they give an order. If you refuse to tell them, hiding it, they can't play. If the focus is instead on the tactical fights, "total war" fashion, then yeah you can integrate them with a minimal operational layer. But it doesn't need much in the way of mechanics, because all that is going to be settled on the "battle map" anyway.

[jacobs_ladder2]

I think it would depend greatly on the kind of game that you are describing.

I can only see a few ways in which smaller unit actions can really mix with large scale warfare. One would be a campaign style game (i.e. Close Combat) where the battle as a whole is somehow broken down into smaller battles and each is played out to a conclusion.

Another is the tracking of a single unit or multiple units through several battles over some period of time (i.e. Panzer Leader)

Or I can imagine a game played on a very large map in which the AI plays a huge role. The player can "take charge" at will and dive into a battle at the tactical level or allow the computer to resolve those which are not important.

But I think therein lies the rub. When you start looking at small unit actions played out on a grand scale, you are talking about a large number of small units and, inevitably, a huge amount of "help" given to the commander by the AI.

"Highway to the Reich" is a pretty good game to say the least. It covers warfare at the operational level, but breaks everything down to company-sized units. The AI is fantastic and allows the player to give out orders at higher levels or micromanage if desired. The game is a huge move in the right direction (it is not hex-based), but relies heavily on the AI to take care of the details.

A game which allows the player to control individual vehicles or squads, in even as little as a regiment-sized engagement, seems to me to be a great deal of work unless the AI is sufficiently advanced to control what the player does not wish to. I am not saying it is impossible, because I believe it to be very possible, but it is going to take a bit of a leap in technology.

In fact, as the power of computers increases it is more and more likely we will see more of the kind of games you are describing. I firmly agree with you that game designers are often confined to the same old styles that evolved in a time when we only had pen, paper and dice with which to resolve our differences. Hex-based games, for example, I pray will soon become a thing of the past.

Cheers

Paul

[c3k]

Urban Shocker,

Yeah, I'd like a (well executed) game like that, too.

Regards,

Ken

[kipanderson]

Urban Shocker, hi,

“Too much to ask?” probably

I have long lobbied for a full feature, full function operational game to be welded onto CM. Such that one could resolve the game at the operational level, or at the CM level. That is play out the game at the operational level with the manoeuvre units being mainly battalion combat teams, but then click down a scale to resolve any given contact battle at the CM level if the two players agreed. Say the battle for a given cross roads that was particularly important to the overall campaign. A CMMC game welded to CM.

The program would be very like the Quick Battle Generator but taking its parameters for forces, weather and so on… from the operational map/game.

Is all this likely to happen any time soon… if ever, no.

It is not my job to defend BFC, and Steve will post to do just that if he gets the whim to, but the amount of work required would be huge. Steve has already made clear that the first game with CMX2 will be concentrating on getting the new graphics engine, Relative Spotting, one to one representation and such all sorted. The second game will introduce cooperative play/live team play. There will be a new operational layer, but not one in which we can manoeuvre units to the extent that you and I, and no doubt Jason, Paul and Ken, would wish for.

The importance of an operational level is in large part to set each CM contact battles in greater context. This has been taken on by BFC and in CMX2 the new operational level will set greater context for each CM level game. So BFC are moving in the direction we hope for. But not nearly as far as we wish for.

I was heavily involved in CMMC1 and am very keen to use CMX2 as a means of resolving contact battles in a great operational campaign. But we are likely to have to use similar methods to CMMC1.

One feature that would help hugely is if Saved games could be full edited in CMX2. But I am not holding my breath.

BFC are a very small company, perfecting CMX2 for its chosen scale of roughly company v battalion is work enough for such a small team.

Having said all of the above I remain optimistic that one day, some team or another will weld a full feature operational game to a Squad Leader/CM scale game. Hopefully BFC will as I do not really trust others to make a quality job of it.

But sadly I think it will be a very long wait

I have long lobbied for it and Steve has never hinted at any reason for hope.

We are lucky to have CM at all when you look at other wargames .

All the best,

Kip.

[JasonC]

jl2 - different people like different things I suppose. I for one can't stand games that feel like movies somebody else is directing that I am just supposed to watch. When the AI does everything, I completely lose interest. I'd rather play chess than watch the most realistic war movie.

[Urban Shocker]

JasonC,

Perhaps TOAW was not a good choice for a marriage to CM. I did look at HPS simulations and found that that their simplified view of supply is enough to add that extra element of decision making: Should I stay or should I go? If I stay (and fight) there will be trouble but (perhaps) if I go, it will be double.

Anyway, as someone who has developed behavioral models for fish and insects I know that the "success" of the model depends on two things:

1) The assumptions that are made. Every mathematical model makes them.

2) Does the model (assumptions) result in realistic behavior?

We might add a third question:

What do 1 & 2 make the human player do?

This is where I started in my first post. I and others(?) would like to make the decision on some scale where we choose to retreat to the next natural line of defense, or to even make that risky move to cut off the enemy's line of retreat/supply. NOT ONLY do we want to make those decisions but then WE WANT to carry out this plan and fight at the tactical level.

Enough said on that. I have to disagree that this could not be done well nor done simply. Which leads to the 1st question I would ask if I were to develop this game:

Would anybody buy it?

[JasonC]

Making a game is not making a model to fit one known outcome. You have to get not a target behavior correct, but a set of sensitivities to interacting parameters, even combinations of them that have never occurred. And it needs to be transparent to the decision makers, at least in immediate operative consequences, or they can't manipulate it strategically.

There is no substitute for correctly identifying the key controls and presenting them simply to the rival sides. The tendency to giantism, multi level everything, new parameters not the focus of some other set etc, is a usually a mistake. It is trying to substitute knowledge of context for actual game design. The modeling equivalent is putting in 100 weakly related parameters because you can't find the 3 that actually dictate the evolution of the system.

I run CM campaigns to correct a tendency to ignore losses in CM fights, and to generate varied CM scenarios in which realistic and interesting tactical problems appear. At the operational level, the only thing I think is interesting that is added by dual levels is tasking, or kampgruppe selection, analogous to the force selection process in QBs but under much more realistic conditions.

I do not run CM campaigns because I think I can, or should be able to, or want to, model the battle of the bulge or the battle of Kursk down to split second executions and individual vehicles. I don't consider it a coherent desire. Meaning I suspect if those who asked for it had it they wouldn't be able to use it and wouldn't like it very much. (My evidence is they aren't all telling me how much fun they had playing Campaign for North Africa).

I would like a good company scale game for WW II, because I've got good squad, platoon, and battalion ones but not a good company one. If I did have a good company one, I'd play it, using it to simulate division level command. I wouldn't put an operational layer of army command on top of it, then resolve every division vs. division battle at company level.

[Moon]

The program would be very like the Quick Battle Generator but taking its parameters for forces, weather and so on… from the operational map/game.

Is all this likely to happen any time soon… if ever, no.

You sure?

Martin

[Hawk]

Originally posted by Moon:

You sure?

Martin

Oh, that's just ehwul! Common, spill it! I've been drooling for an option to automate the quick battle generator since I first saw it in CMBO!

[kipanderson]

Moon posted,

“The program would be very like the Quick Battle Generator but taking its parameters for forces, weather and so on… from the operational map/game.

Is all this likely to happen any time soon… if ever, no.

You sure?

Martin”

Wow…this is a huge bone… I realize I must be careful and not overreact, it will not be all I wish for, but even some movement in the above indicated direction is massively encouraging .

The welding of an operational game/layer to CM has always been my long-term big idea for CM. As I said above those of us wishing for such a layer must not get too carried away. My guess is we will still be unable to maneuver the operational units. But some interaction between an operational layer and CM, with the results from CM battles applied to the operational layer… or something along those lines… is truly great news.

When it comes to the reason for my wish for an operational layer there are really two related reasons.

One is to do what Jason does not wish to do. To play an entire operational level game of, say the Bulge, with the option of resolving the contact battles at the CM level if players wish. To play an entire CMMC campaign.

The second reason is to set each CM battle in greater context. My guess is that Moon’s bone means we are well on the way to achieving the goal of greater context.

Great stuff .

All the best,

Kip.

PS. The reason for a lack of true CMMC type games using CMAK, and the slow progress of CMMC2 using CMBB, is the massive work load for empires/games masters with the current file format in CM. CMMC1 was a huge success but required an unsustainable number of hours by the empires. We are using CMX1 for something it was not designed to do .

[aka_tom_w]

Originally posted by Hawk:

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

You sure?

Martin

Oh, that's just ehwul! Common, spill it! I've been drooling for an option to automate the quick battle generator since I first saw it in CMBO! </font>

[Urban Shocker]

JasonC,

I agree that force selection and geographical placement is interesting but so is dealing with the consequences whether poor (force retreat) or good (decisive counterattack). Both on an opertaional scale with operational consequences (e.g. cutoff or cutting the enemy off).

It is obvious that you have had a lot of experience with operational games and have concluded that they have not done a very good job but we don't know any specifics of a tactical/operational game from BFC (i.e., Moon's comment in a previous post) so it is hard to discuss the nature or quality of any planned Tact/Op game.

From my point of view, Moon hinted at a dinosaur-sized bone but has only exposed the slightest bit of it.

[Urban Shocker]

I don't know if this person is still around but here is an interesting post from 5.5 years ago. I included it because of the reference to "CM5" which I found somewhat funny. I also found one (TBlaster) from August 19, 1999 though not quite as detailed it did make the same request.

Aacooper

Member

Member # 9

posted December 23, 1999 2:52AM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Driving home from work today I sketched the rough outline for "CM5 - Operations". Since I couldn't get a single Fortran or C program to work in college, I better let everyone know what my idea is in case someone wants to take it up:

After the entirety of WW2 is covered in CM, the next step is to add an operational level. Basically, it would be a programmed method to play Fionn's "Meta-Campaign". It would borrow ideas from the V4V games and TOAW. The scale would be one division's piece of a battle over several days, and the operational level would allow more maneuvering, concentration of force, feinting, etc... The operational portion would be WEGO, where players move around company or battalion-sized units. The map would be pixelized, not hexes, and the game would shift to the combat map when units are within range of each other (visibility plays a part too, so a unit on an important hill would force more combat than one in the middle of a dense forest). The forces for each combat would, like TOAW, be tracked individually, so the tactical combat could be properly set up. Like TOAW, units could be sent to respond to an enemy attack. The maps would be a mixture of pre-planned and randomly created. An important area could be created, or important highways could be laid down, then the rest would be randomly created.

Around that basic system, there would need to be supply, similar to V4V, and more precise. So, tons of ammo & POL used and supplied would be tracked, and the transportation capability of the supply net would be kept track off. A certain amount of attrition would be automatic. Artillery barrages and harrassing artillery fire would be abstracted.

The idea would be to make the same decisions as a divisional commander, but use the most accurate tactical engine for determining combat results. Battles that had some maneuver (desert, Russia, Bulge) would be more interesting than an attrition battle like Normandy.

Multiplayer would be needed to speed things along, and include the interesting options Fionn mentioned.

Obviously there's a few flaws in the plan, namely the length of each game, and in a 1 player game, the strength of the AI. Also, the potential market is likely to be a subset of the intersection of the TOAW and CM groups of players (miniscule). Still, how neat would it be to out-maneuver your opponent, concentrate your forces, and see your advance fail because a battery of 88's clogged the bridge with destroyed Shermans?!?

[kipanderson]

Hi,

I agree with others on this thread that the biggest gain from setting CM battles in greater context is the greater need for force preservation that can result.

No matter what the points system in a “one off” game of CM the temptation to fight to the last man is near overwhelming. It is common to most, if not all simulations, that for understandable reasons the players are far more ruthless with their virtual men than would be the case with real lives. Even if morale is realistically modelled the temptation to demand Stalingrad type sacrifices from ones virtual soldiers is near irresistible. Casualties tend to be far higher than in most real world clashes.

By setting CM games in great context, making it clear that any given battalion combat team is likely to have to fight over and over again without reinforcements, concentrates the mind like no points system in a one off game can.

The bigger the picture one can show the players, the greater the context a battle can be set in, the more realistic the play is like to be. For me this was the biggest lesson of CMMC1.

Having said all of the above, I do think Static Operations are fun way to play CMX1. But an operational system that not only carries casualties forward, but shows a far bigger picture will be even better.

When it comes to operations, as with other aspects of CMX2, things are rapidly moving in the right direction .

All the best,

Kip.

[Sergei]

I would find it more plausible and more playable if we had a dynamic campaign such as that in Il-2 Sturmovik. In it, the front is changing all the time, and your actions may or may not have an effect on it. But it will most certainly have an effect on you. The computer would do all the operational level crunching and generate missions for your company or battalion. If you suffered heavy losses, your unit might be pulled to reserve, reinforced or maybe it would just vanish altogether.

[Bonxa]

Hey, shuffle over to www.CMMC2.org if you haven't already. We are always in need of dedicated players. The battles may have started but they are very far from over. I if you like the operational aspect you don't want to miss this.

[Elmar Bijlsma]

Originally posted by Moon:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />

The program would be very like the Quick Battle Generator but taking its parameters for forces, weather and so on… from the operational map/game.

Is all this likely to happen any time soon… if ever, no.

You sure?

Martin </font>

[jacobs_ladder2]

Originally posted by JasonC:

jl2 - different people like different things I suppose. I for one can't stand games that feel like movies somebody else is directing that I am just supposed to watch. When the AI does everything, I completely lose interest. I'd rather play chess than watch the most realistic war movie.

Agreed.

[76mm]

Hmmm, Moon's hint is certainly intriguing...but what does it mean?

There are at least three general ways for BFC to implement a campaign level for CMx2, in decreasing order of complexity:

1) provide an entire operational level game for some specific campaign; or

2) provide some method for providing greater context to individual battles by linking them together into a campaign via a series of scenarios (generated randomly or by some other means); or

3) provide players with the tools (data import/export or text file editing, etc.) to allow them to create player-made campaign tools.

Pure speculation, but it seems like #1 would be an insane amount of work for little upside. #2 could essentially be an upgrade or variation of existing operations, but allowing the use of different maps, etc., and maybe more player control over forces. #3 would be excellent, but Steve has apparently already ruled out the text file editing of scenarios files (see other bone thread), and said that import/export was being considered.

I'd be thrilled with #3 and maybe #2, depending on how implemented. Moon, more info please!

76mm

[Gpig]

What if he wasn't referring to CM, when he lobbed that "bone-bomb?"

Gpig

[aka_tom_w]

I was also wondering if he was refering to some form of NEW not yet talked about ( see Aurora or Brilliant Pebbles forums for clues WHICH NO ONE CAN GET INTO! :mad: ) game that would be a NON Combat Mission game but might have some element of combat Mission Scale and game engine (or something) embedded in it?

:confused:

But what the hell do I know?

-tom w

[Andreas]

Originally posted by aka_tom_w:

( see Aurora or Brilliant Pebbles forums for clues WHICH NO ONE CAN GET INTO! :mad: )

I am 110% certain that the quote statement is totally wrong.

[kipanderson]

Hi,

I agree that it will not be a fully functional operational game. Far too big a feature for the first release of CMX2.

My guess, assuming it is CMX2 that Moon was referring to, goes like this.

An operational map, some variant on a 1;50,000 map, with units and such on it. You fight preordained battles which depending on the outcome trigger “events”. Your battalion combat team is ordered into reserve and then to such and such a location… and so on. You track your battalion through a campaign with the next action dependant on the results of the last. All preordained within parameters set by the operational designers. In the case of the first release of CMX2 this would mean BFC. While you fight your battles, you can watch the overall campaign develop around you on the operational map.

It would be a big improvement on CMX1, way more context for your battles. (Although I am still a fan of Static operations )

Will be fun to see what happens.

Moon you cannot leave us hanging in the air like this… it would be cruel

All the best,

Kip.

[jim crowley]

Originally posted by Andreas:

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

( see Aurora or Brilliant Pebbles forums for clues WHICH NO ONE CAN GET INTO! :mad: )

I am 110% certain that the quote statement is totally wrong. </font>