CMX2 Casualties

[aka_tom_w]

It could be simple

As Cpl Steiner says....

Why not just have one order, just select SHIFT and "drag a box around the soldiers you want to move" and all the WIA's (only) will be given a "med evac" order which just means move to the rear (or away from the action) or to the direction the local HQ or whatever.

It could be that simple.

(or not?)

-tom w

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by aka_tom_w:

It could be simple

As Cpl Steiner says....

Why not just have one order, just select SHIFT and "drag a box around the soldiers you want to move" and all the WIA's (only) will be given a "med evac" order which just means move to the rear (or away from the action) or to the direction the local HQ or whatever.

It could be that simple.

(or not?)

-tom w

Why not just design a game called Ambulance Mission if this really floats your boat?

I just don't see what possible difference this could make to the average company sized tactical scenario. I'd be perfectly ok with the AI moving them to the rear automatically, as the AI currently does for routing and panicked troops, or just deleting them altogether.

Incidentally, "the local HQ" is the last place they would move to. Each battalion had a Regimental Aid Post which was set up by the battalion Medical Officer. Each company had a casualty collection point set up by the Company Sergeant Major before a major action; casualties were collected here and moved to the RAP when and as needed. The casualty collection point was best located seperately from the POW collection point (never a good idea to let the enemy see the effects of his weapons on your men). So casualties and POWs would often come back in seperate "streams". Should this be modelled in detail as well?

I suppose it is also a bad idea for company commanders to see the effects the enemy weapons are having on their men - kind of shakes resolve - so the company CP probably wasn't too close to the RAP or CC point either (aside from the obvious need for dispersal under enemy shell and mortarfire).

And if players will not have control over individual soldiers, how would that be achieved? A group command stating the obvious does not seem to be entirely necessary.

[Gpig]

Agree to Disagree, why don't you?

Ace Pilot wrote:

4. Some combination of #2 and #3. The AI would still control WIA, but the player would have some influence by issuing general orders at the start of the battle (move wounded to rear immediately, leave in place, move to a designated rally point, etc). The AI would do its best to fulfill these orders. The same idea could be applied to AI-controlled prisoners (take to rear, hold in place, or even take NO prisoners).

I think this is a workable solution. When wounded happen, there is a SOP in place already that frees up the player/commander from further management.

At the beginning of the battle, there would be a SOP checklist to go through, and one of the items would be for WIA.

Gpig

[Sirocco]

The one thing that seems certain is that CMX2 won't allow detailed control of wounded. Therefore the representation of WIA/KIA will be quite shallow. Ultimately the developers have more important gameplay aspects to spend their time on.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Sirocco:

The one thing that seems certain is that CMX2 won't allow detailed control of wounded. Therefore the representation of WIA/KIA will be quite shallow. Ultimately the developers have more important gameplay aspects to spend their time on.

In this case, I will agree to agree with you.

[RMC]

Originally posted by aka_tom_w:

Add to that a few more...

7) how are immobile WIA's moved or transported?

I don't think this is going to be addressed at all. Steve has indicated that he is not making a medical sim. I think the incapacitated will stay where they fall. The scope of CM battles is such that it is not too unrealistic to have casualty evacuation occur after the battle.

8) what happens when WIA's are captured? (Can they be captured?)

I don't think this will occur other than the end game tally. Combat troops are not going to divert from their mission to deal with the various wounded enemy strewn about the battlefield. They aren't going to waste time trying to separate the wounded from the dead when they are still in combat. The most I expect to see is something similar to Close Combat in that there is some scoring adjustment for the gain/loss of WIA based on control of the battlespace. If CMx2 gets a workable operation or campaign mode then this rises in importance IMO. The concept extends to vehicle recovery etc.

[hoolaman]

Originally posted by RMC:

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

8) what happens when WIA's are captured? (Can they be captured?)

I don't think this will occur other than the end game tally. Combat troops are not going to divert from their mission to deal with the various wounded enemy strewn about the battlefield. They aren't going to waste time trying to separate the wounded from the dead when they are still in combat. The most I expect to see is something similar to Close Combat in that there is some scoring adjustment for the gain/loss of WIA based on control of the battlespace. If CMx2 gets a workable operation or campaign mode then this rises in importance IMO. The concept extends to vehicle recovery etc. </font>

[RMC]

Originally posted by Hoolaman:

I expect wounded will be essentially separated into two categories similar to the current CM treatment. You will either have troops that are dead/incapacitated whether alive or not, or troops that are OK. Note that the fact a soldier is alive does not neccesarily mean combat-ready and in player control just as in CM1.

I don't think we're going to see the binary system of CM in CMx2. In CM the entities represented in the game were squads, teams, sections, crews what have you. They were all single elements in the game engine. Each had a set of characteristics. One of which was how many effectives remained in the unit. The soldiers themselves were not modeled, they were merely an attribute of the game entity.

With CMx2 the entities are going to be individual soldiers. They are going to be grouped into units for reasons of historical accuracy and player manageability. But they will still be modeled. Each will be able to shoot and be shot independently of the others. As they are now the entities being dealt with by the engine, we have to think about what attributes we want to use. Firepower, morale, health and stamina strike me as the minimum we would want (basically a translation of the units characteristics we see today in CM down to the man).

If we can do multiple levels of stamina why not also multiple levels of health?

For POW purposes, I expect there would be two similar categories, where you can't get points for capturing dead/good as dead enemy soldiers.

I don't know that I would equate incapacitated with as good as dead. Incapacitated can encompass a number of things. It doesn't have to be mortally wounded. Some incapacitated soldiers will die, some can return to duty after varying lengths of treatment and recovery time.

Sure, to the player of a quick battle, they have no value. Historically, I think they did. Do we want to try to encourage more historical play or can the war always end with the last turn?

With this in mind, there may easily be a third wounded category where lightly wounded troops may remain in combat, and in player control, but get a performance and morale penalty of some kind.

A more realistic individual modelling of morale would have to result in broken individual soldiers out of player control, but still on the map. All of this must be dealt with under the philosophy of 1:1 modelling, but control of whole units only.

Close Combat did this, but their interpretation had some issues with it. A panicked soldier could flee on his own, or be left behind when his unit moved. Later, he could rally and magically find his way back to the parent unit. It will be interesting to see if CMx2 finds a way to do this better, without giving the player a pool of separated soldiers to manage. Or maybe that could be a gameplay device for expanding the role of HQ units. Collect the separated soldiers and get them back into the battle in ad hoc teams.

Lighlty wounded men could then be treated in the same way as broken men, and left on the map, out of player control, but capturable. Unless a soldier is dead/incapacitated, he is still dangerous, even if he can't keep up, and some value should be placed on him.

Keeping up is another aspect of the 1:1 modeling that should be addressed. Does the wounded soldier slow down the rest of his unit? Or does he lag behind? How far can he lag behind before he becomes separated or will separation only be caused by morale problems?

[hoolaman]

Your points are all valid, and of course I was just speculating.

I kind of got my arguments the wrong way around, and in fact I said there would be more than two wounded states, although I was trying to distinguish the fact that there will be two categories from the point of view of what is useful for the player to worry about.

Men that are dead or as good-as obviously can be pretty much written off in game terms. They will lay where they fell.

Men who, for example, can't walk, can still spot enemy units. A man who can't weild a gun is probably more useful as a messenger or something than a panicked man. Every man has some value IRL and should probably have the same in a game of CM's scope, to encourage realistic play.

Militarily a Russian conscript infantryman is surely worth less than a tank crew. Whether they reach the aid station (or equivalent) is of significance to the war effort and later battles in a single campaign.

How much of this should be modelled? I dunno. We all hope BFC gets it spot on.

[Kip Watson]

I'm not at all interested in commanding or controlling wounded troops, but I am slightly enthusiastic about seeing some sort of modelling of wounded/killed during the battle (eg. the need to protect wounded, cover their evacuation etc. would affect command decisions).

I am also very enthusiastic about a detailed summary (at end of game, but on-going would be great too), about the breakdown of casualties - wounded and killed, how badly wounded, how wounds occurred etc (ie this would need to be tracked).

From a historical simulation perspective this would be really interesting to me.

[Cpl Steiner]

RMC made some good comments above about how the "entity" will shift from the unit to the individual in the new game engine.

How about a comparison with another game - Operation Flashpoint. In this game, individual soldiers were organised into squads and could be given orders as a group. However, each individual man could suffer wounds, which would show up as blood on their uniform and had different effects depending on where they occurred. For instance, a man with leg wounds fell down and had to crawl to get around from that point onwards. I think some men were even medics and able to heal some of these wounds.

In Operation Flashpoint, the design decision was that wounded kept on fighting until they were killed, but with some impairment in performance, and that was it. However, you couldn't take prisoners in Operation Flashpoint. I think we can say for sure that you will be able to take prisoners in CMX2. So, the question of what happens when you capture a man who cannot stand because he has leg wounds does become an issue.

The whole situation is horribly messy, I agree, but the 1:1 modelling makes it unavoidable that these things are looked at. You could have healthy men surrendering, wounded but standing men surrendering, wounded that are crawling surrendering. They would have to throw away their weapon to surrender and put there hands up or something. How this is animated for a guy who is lying on the ground would be a problem for a start. I mean, he can't stand up and walk towards the enemy with his hands in the air. It is all very messy and horrible, but it cannot be avoided IMO.

[aka_tom_w]

One possible approach to this problem/issue (and I agree it could get VERY messy) would be to start out with a clear idea of which states or catagories for health or level of "woundedness" the game will support.

To be clear the obvious first two states are %100 healthy, NOT wounded and KIA, %100 dead.

Now in between those two extremes, we could ask what states, conditions or catagories will be modeled or represented in the game.

it could be simple and it could be JUST WIA (same as CMxx)

Wounded in Action for all others that are not %100 healthy or KIA.

But as we know they sort of did that in a very abstract way for CMxx (CMBO CMBB and CMAK)

So perhaps some of us are wondering if there will be a little more detail or fidelity in the way the game models the various states of WIA.

My guess would be they will have two inbetween states for WIA

(in between %100 healthy and KIA)

1) Lightly wounded (imparied performance, slows down the squad but can still walk, tires quicker, less accurate, AND in a very high fidelity game model the lightly wounded (bleeding) could become the Critically wounded)

2) Critically wounded (cannot walk and must be left behind or attended to or moved by other units, over time the Critically Wounded could become KIA?)

I do agree with this:

"The whole situation is horribly messy, I agree, but the 1:1 modelling makes it unavoidable that these things are looked at. "

I sure would like to know what they have in mind to deal with this one?

-tom w

[ June 23, 2005, 08:45 AM: Message edited by: aka_tom_w ]

[c3k]

Gents,

If we're to model WIA/KIA on the battlefield, well, let's do it all out! I want to be able to stack the dead in front of my men so the living are protected. I want to stack the enemy dead on top of demo charges set on a bridge so I don't have to transport tamping material (the Green Berets in Vietnam ). I want to be able to stake out the enemy WIA, just out of small arms range, so the enemy can hear their pleadings and suffer a morale penalty. I want individual first aid kit use tracked so one squad member cannot apply more than one dressing. I want the "miracle" medicines such as penicillin modelled so the allied WIA can get back in the fight that much sooner. I want to zoom in and see where on the soldier the bullet hits so that a blood splatter effect splashes my monitor. I want to model cannibilism in POW camps in the Soviet Union so the Italian POW morale is accurate. (Yes, this happened. I salute the bravery and fortitude of the Italians who survived the Soviet atrocities.)

Gentlemen, all I want is a fun game about COMBAT.

Thank you.

Ken

[RMC]

LOL.

You realize that COMBAT involves men being wounded as well as being killed and that the wounded have historically outnumbered the killed by a wide margin?

[Battlefront.com]

This is all very tough stuff for us, as you all (thankfully) seem to understand. Which is why so few games have even superficially dealt with these issues. It's kinda like asking why nobody has brought a flying car to the marketplace... great idea, but there are a "few" practical issues associated with this

As I said earlier, we aren't interested in making a medic/evac simulation, but we are hopefull we can make some improvements to the way things worked in CMx1.

What are we going to be able to do? I honestly don't know. We've pushed all the designs (and there are several) off our plates for now because there are more important things to focus on. After we get a bunch of those things done we'll dust off the designs and see what we have time/energy to do and (most importantly) what will fit in best with the rest of the game.

One thing to remember from earlier conversations... the CMx2 engine will be a work in progress for as long as we are using it before moving onto CMx3. We would have liked CMx1 to have been a work in progress, but unfortunately we found that it was too difficult to work on and therefore little progress was possible without inordinate investments of time and resources.

What this means is that for the first release of CMx2 there will be lots of stuff that can be improved upon for future releases. Some things will never be fully fleshed out (it is impossible to simulate EVERYTHING in minute detail, obviously), but the more important stuff will be improved upon as we move from product to product.

I'm going to guess that WIA/KIA issues will be one of these features that's improved over time. It's something that would be nice to do to the 10th degree in the first game, but based on the utter lack of it in wargames in general, it's clear it isn't something we MUST do for the game to be successful in everybody's eyes.

Steve

[aka_tom_w]

"I'm going to guess that WIA/KIA issues will be one of these features that's improved over time. It's something that would be nice to do to the 10th degree in the first game, but based on the utter lack of it in wargames in general, it's clear it isn't something we MUST do for the game to be successful in everybody's eyes.

Steve"

Why do I hear the theme from Saturday Night Live's "Lowered Expectations" (it has a nice jingle to it if you have never heard it) ringing in my head now

I guess we won't have to worry too much about the WIA problem as it seems as though it is not such burning issue for the folks at BFC at this time.

oh well....

I guess we can assume WIA/KIA situation may be slightly more detailed than CMx1 so I guess we are left wondering how much more detailed or improved upon then the situation in CMx1 in light of the fact CMx2 will have 1:1 representation for all troops.

:confused:

(at least I think that is what he just said )

-tom w

[ June 23, 2005, 01:45 PM: Message edited by: aka_tom_w ]

[Cpl Steiner]

I suspect all casualties will be "bodies" on the ground and out of the game, with the stats at the end resolving actual fate.

[RMC]

Originally posted by Cpl Steiner:

I suspect all casualties will be "bodies" on the ground and out of the game, with the stats at the end resolving actual fate.

I still think they will want to model some sort of degradation so that squads that have seen action are not composed of healthy men exclusively. The player shouldn't have to "fiddle" with them, but he should have to account for them in his plan of action.

We have focused mostly on the physical/medical casualties in this thread and not so much on the psychiatric casualties. Those do not lend themselves to the binary go/nogo model IMO.

[Andrew H.]

Originally posted by RMC:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Cpl Steiner:

I suspect all casualties will be "bodies" on the ground and out of the game, with the stats at the end resolving actual fate.

I still think they will want to model some sort of degradation so that squads that have seen action are not composed of healthy men exclusively. The player shouldn't have to "fiddle" with them, but he should have to account for them in his plan of action.

We have focused mostly on the physical/medical casualties in this thread and not so much on the psychiatric casualties. Those do not lend themselves to the binary go/nogo model IMO. </font>

[aka_tom_w]

"Some relatively simple in-squad tracking of wounded men who are still able to fight, but are impaired, may be worthwhile. I suppose that they should be penalized in a similar way to how "exhausted" men are penalized, perhaps with minor tweaks one way or the other: I don't see a lot of point in tracking the precise wound."

OK that sounds good. I agree with that completely!

I would like to see two catagories or "states" for men NOT in squads.

1) Critically wounded (must be left behind lies or sits down and drops out of the squad)

and

2) KIA (body lies down or slumps over)

In both cases the man is no longer part of the fighting unit or squad and must be left behind or somehow left where the injury occured.

I can see why Steve says "we are not all that interested" in this aspect of the simulation because it looks very messy and there sure is NO easy way to do it right or do it in a way they won't be constantly critized or harassed by likes of some us here who like to complain about lack of realism. This whole WIA thing/issue is obviously a very hard apsect of the game/simulation to model realistically!

But I do wish them the very best of luck on this one!

-tom w

[aka_tom_w]

Battlefront.com

Administrator

Member # 42

posted January 21, 2005 12:15 AM

1:1 representation sure does open up a big can of worms. It's one of the reasons why we did not attempt it for CMx1 (though hardware wouldn't have allowed it anyway). However, as has already been pointed out one should not confuse 1:1 graphical represenation with 1:1 modeling or 1:1 control. Three different concepts.

From a GAME standpoint, 1:1 graphical representation is the most important. If I were to make a Top Ten list of complaints from general gamers about CMx1, this would probably be the #2 complaint (#1 is the lack of ridiculously detailed and textured models) constant throughout all three games.

From a REALISM standpoint the most important thing is the 1:1 modeling. Though it is very difficult to do this without the 1:1 graphical represenation, it is certainly possible to do. We could have had individuals run away from generic 3 man squads or more detailed soldier stats. But without 1:1 representation this all seemed kinda hollow so we kept the level of modeling in line with the degree of visual representation. Now that we are increasing the latter, we will also be increasing the modeling to stay in balance. There will still be abstractions, just not nearly as many as there are now.

The interesting thing is that most "gamers" and "grognards" is that they probably pretty much agree that 1:1 control is undesirable. There is already enough to pay attention to without having to get Pvt. Pyle to move 0.5 meters to the left of the tree he is behind so he can get a shot off. It also turns the focus to individual soldiers instead of units and the formations they belong to.

Obviously, if you are smart you'll see that we're not going to implement 1:1 control, but are going to do 1:1 visual and 1:1 modeling. The results should make the game more fun to play and also far more realistic. There will be issues we need to work through to make sure it all works happily together, but that's the sort of thing you guys pay us for when you buy the game

Steve

Disclaimer: Art Work presented by Gpig (who does this sort of thing for a living but he does not work for BFC)

.

[ June 24, 2005, 11:18 AM: Message edited by: aka_tom_w ]

[aka_tom_w]

Originally posted by Lord Peter:

Some relatively simple in-squad tracking of wounded men who are still able to fight, but are impaired, may be worthwhile. I suppose that they should be penalized in a similar way to how "exhausted" men are penalized, perhaps with minor tweaks one way or the other: I don't see a lot of point in tracking the precise wound.

This might help

Steve said this a little while ago:

Battlefront.com

Administrator

Member # 42

posted January 23, 2005 12:37 AM

Don't worry... we're not going to do Combat Medic Mission However, dropping wounded in the spots where they were wounded is not realistic. You, the player, should not be able to spot a guy who should not be there. In other words, a lightly wounded or evacuated seriously wounded soldier would be moved SOMEWHERE other than out in an empty street, hanging out a window, in a wrecked vehicle, etc. So why should the player see such a soldier where he realistically wouldn't be?

Repetition of visuals is not a concern for us. It isn't like we are planning on having a 12 man squad stick to a static formation. Look at Gpig's drawings as they are pretty much spot on how things will look in CMx2. Even the very old (by computer standards) Close Combat had guys individually positioned, so it can obviously be done.

.

.

Steve

[ June 24, 2005, 11:13 AM: Message edited by: aka_tom_w ]

[hoolaman]

I agree with Lord Peter's post above.

I stated before, there will probably be two categories of wounded-ness, one that drops the man out of the game and player control completely, and one that leaves him in the squad (healthy or lightly wounded).

For KIA/WIA that drop out of the game, I think it would be sufficient to have them generically animated simply as being hit and dropping to the ground.

The bodies could remain there during the turn, but perhaps when the movie is over, or after one turn, they fade out or disappear.

I think this would be enough to suspend disbelief for me.

For any other category of "walking wounded" you could treat them in game terms exactly like an exhausted/routed man who goes to ground or falls behind.

However, judging from Steve's post, I expect the treatment will in fact be a lot like CM1, where your men are either casualties or not. As long as the 1:1 animations provide suspension of disbelief then I think most people will be satisfied (I would be anyway).