New Bones Thread

[Michael Emrys]

I'm starting a new one as the old one has gone past 300 posts and should be locked.

Originally posted by Halberdiers:

But you do not think that the guys who wanna 30 seconds per turn, do not call for the same...

Yes. And frankly, I find that call unrealistic. It took a while for even a commander on the spot to take in a situation, decide what he wanted to do, issue orders, and have those orders understood. Part of that is accounted for in the various delays of execution, but the one minute turn length also imposes a minimal delay on all units. That does not strike me as unreasonable.

Michael

[aka_tom_w]

Home Sweet Home

Michael: How do you feel about 2 of 3 min turns?

I am not opposed to 30 sec turns to keep others happy if it is an optional feature.

I agree with Michael that the 30 sec turn is unrealistic for the reasons he stated BUT if it makes other players happy and they would like to play tcp/ip 30 sec at a time that sounds fine with me. (I guess)

-tom w

Originally posted by Michael Emrys:

I'm starting a new one as the old one has gone past 300 posts and should be locked.

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

But you do not think that the guys who wanna 30 seconds per turn, do not call for the same...

Yes. And frankly, I find that call unrealistic. It took a while for even a commander on the spot to take in a situation, decide what he wanted to do, issue orders, and have those orders understood. Part of that is accounted for in the various delays of execution, but the one minute turn length also imposes a minimal delay on all units. That does not strike me as unreasonable.

Michael </font>

[Tarkus]

Although I did say 30 second turns might be fun to play, I am perfectly content with the 60 we currently have and I do not need more or less. But since the idea was raised, might as well discuss it's worth.

Game wise it could be fun, especially for tiny-size action. But as far as realism goes, it is true that 30 secs imply tighter control.

Cheers

[ January 19, 2005, 12:22 PM: Message edited by: Tarkus ]

[Holman]

The start of this thread might be a good place to summarize the bones that were thrown in the original. Would someone who has kept up with the whole discussion be willing to do that?

Thanks!

[Elmar Bijlsma]

60 seconds is just right. The right amount of time to build up tention of the "oh no, now what are they doing?" quality whilst not long enough to grow frustrated at the amount of time the underlings go without my guiding hand. And not quite so short that I feel the troops need constant hand holding.

Besides think of the time spend playing a PBEM game if it were 30 seconds. No, I'd rather send out a 60 second turn and be done with it for that afternoon.

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by aka_tom_w:

Home Sweet Home

Michael: How do you feel about 2 of 3 min turns?

At the moment, I can't think I would be uncomfortable with it. I reserve the right to change my mind if some major problem turns up in the actual playing of it, though.

I am not opposed to 30 sec turns to keep others happy if it is an optional feature.

I agree with Michael that the 30 sec turn is unrealistic for the reasons he stated BUT if it makes other players happy and they would like to play tcp/ip 30 sec at a time that sounds fine with me. (I guess)

I'd go along with that except that I'm not sure that it can be done as a practical matter. I await BFC's decision on that, if they care to offer one.

Michael

[Redwolf]

2 mins turns can make a lot of sense, we sometimes use them in TacOps.

Required features:

1) an artillery interface that allows you to limit the number of rounds that fall in the next turn and that does not lose precision after that. No problem with any realistic artillery system.

2) SOPs, aka as in

so that units halfway do what you want and don't wander off in unrealistic ways.

If CM2 collapses the gazillion of different commands into just speed and SOP settings for movement the latter is no problem either.

Overall I don't see a reason why it shouldn't be settable by the player at game start, there is nothing fundamentally different about a turn whether it is 30 or 120 second long from an engine standpoint.

[dieseltaylor]

I truly believe that a grave problem lies in the game fragmenting into so many possible ways to play that it actually divides the players.

I will not play X as he plays the wrong length turn .... the way one plays would need to vary so greatly that you could end up with small enclaves with noobies wondering between the various factions and mastering none.

There are always going to be people who wish to tinker with the game to reflect there view of reality. But is only a game and it does need to have some base level that everyone plays.

[Stan Hope Park]

What if turn length varied with the quality of your command and control setup? Say 1 minute for WW II Germans, 3 minutes for WW II Soviets; 30 seconds for modern Americans. Anyone old enough to remember the Yacquhinto (spelling?) boardgames will remember having to plot orders much further into the future when in command of poor quality troops.

Increasing turn length has anti-Borg properties but hardware-straining tendencies, so the key word is "optional".

[Stan Hope Park]

Originally posted by dieseltaylor: There are always going to be people who wish to tinker with the game to reflect there view of reality. But is only a game and it does need to have some base level that everyone plays.

This argument applies also to the TO&E if they allow us to adjust it (Oh please, please!). Maybe there will be a non-adjustable set of game parameters to facilitate fair competition - a level playing field so to speak.

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by CSO_Talorgan:

Anyone old enough to remember the Yacquhinto (spelling?) boardgames will remember having to plot orders much further into the future when in command of poor quality troops.

Which games were those? I own most of Yaquinto's games, although I never got around to playing their tactical games (Panzer, 88...), so I might not have noticed that feature.

Michael

[Battlefront.com]

Since real life isn't done in turns, ANY turn length is inherently unrealistic. Therefore, arguing about this or that turn length being more or less realistic is missing the point. One should instead be thinking about how to make turn length irrelevant, not more relevant, in terms of impacting realism.

Variable turn length is possible in CMx2 because we aren't using assumptions of 1 min turns as CMx1 did. That being said, it is unclear to us if we will allow the user to adjust turns length. There are a lot of issues surrounding such a feature that we simply don't have answers to at this point.

One way to make turn length rather irrelevant is to put more restrictions on plan changing. If you issue an order that can't be changed for 5 minutes, what difference does it make if the turns are 1 minute, 30 seconds, or 2 minutes? In that instance that unit is locked down for several turns no matter what. Now... is this realistic or good from a game standpoint? Depends on how it is done. And that is always the tough part

SOPs, more realistic fire control, better simulation of C&C, more detailed objectives, etc. are all helpful in reducing the dependency on turn length for realism.

Steve

[Tero]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

Since real life isn't done in turns, ANY turn length is inherently unrealistic. Therefore, arguing about this or that turn length being more or less realistic is missing the point. One should instead be thinking about how to make turn length irrelevant, not more relevant, in terms of impacting realism.

Variable turn length is possible in CMx2 because we aren't using assumptions of 1 min turns as CMx1 did. That being said, it is unclear to us if we will allow the user to adjust turns length. There are a lot of issues surrounding such a feature that we simply don't have answers to at this point.

One way to make turn length rather irrelevant is to put more restrictions on plan changing. If you issue an order that can't be changed for 5 minutes, what difference does it make if the turns are 1 minute, 30 seconds, or 2 minutes? In that instance that unit is locked down for several turns no matter what. Now... is this realistic or good from a game standpoint? Depends on how it is done. And that is always the tough part

SOPs, more realistic fire control, better simulation of C&C, more detailed objectives, etc. are all helpful in reducing the dependency on turn length for realism.

Any chance of having a "pause on request" feature in solo/LAN games ? That way the flow of the game would be continuous unless (one of the) player(s) requested a break to issue/amend orders.

IIRC there was such a feature in the ancient Typhoon of Steel-family of games.

[Bigduke6]

I am a little leery of more, and more complicated, unit reaction routines. I doubt it is possible to create artificial intellgence to support them.

Take for instance the "seek hull-down" command, is there any one out there that uses it? I don't, like most players I look at the ground, pick the best hull-down spot, and hunt, contact, move, or fast move up to depending on where I think the threats are, and what I want to do with the vehicle.

The "hull-down" command can't do that as well. This is one of the reasons the A/I has trouble in the attack; it is using a relatively dumb brain to choose hull-down positions - at least against most human opponents. (That's my impression of the A/I anyway.)

My point is, the human brain crunches the information that goes into making a "where do I hull-down" decison far better than a PC/MAC. After all, it's TCs and drivers that pick hull-down positions in real life, not the on-board computer. So I doubt CM2 will be able to match the human brain on that one.

My worry, therefore, is that attempts to impose more limitations in order-giving, unit responses etc. will translate to, in practical terms, a bigger orders menu with commands similar in utility to "hull-down." The result might be, I fear, stupid unit behaviour.

By this I mean "stupid they wouldn't have done that in real life" and by which I definately don't mean "an accurate replication a stupid RL mistake." The first is bad for the game, the second, obviously is good.

This is why I tend to lean towards a 2-3 minute turn, although certainly I don't insist on it. That forces the players to think more in terms of orders not tweaking, but at the same time gives him full opportunity to add the power of his (hopefully) human brain to what the game has the units doing.

Just my opinion. As others have pointed out if you are brave enough to get away from the uber-crack and elite- troops and play with greens and conscripts, you are well aware CM can force you into thinking 2-3 turns ahead, because your units can't react faster than that.

[ January 20, 2005, 01:55 AM: Message edited by: Bigduke6 ]

[Tarkus]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

[...]

One way to make turn length rather irrelevant is to put more restrictions on plan changing. If you issue an order that can't be changed for 5 minutes, what difference does it make if the turns are 1 minute, 30 seconds, or 2 minutes? In that instance that unit is locked down for several turns no matter what. Now... is this realistic or good from a game standpoint? Depends on how it is done. And that is always the tough part

[...]

I like the sounds of this. Of course it may means a lot that I don't get, but the general idea suggest planning and control of the chain of command along the lines of our most recent discussion.

Originally posted by Bigduke6:

The "hull-down" command can't do that as well. This is one of the reasons the A/I has trouble in the attack; it is using a relatively dumb brain to choose hull-down positions - at least against most human opponents. (That's my impression of the A/I anyway.)

You're right, the seek hull down order isn't that useful. I made quite a few mistake trying to use it because I thought it was a "generic order" that was the equal of "move" or "Fast move" in CMBO. In other word I thought the order would take care of everything provided I put the waypoint.

Yet when you think about it, seek hull down is really a fine tuning order (not perfect, but it can be useful provided you still eyeball the ground and do not use it on uncertain LOS ground like scattered trees and such.) and that was one interesting point between BO and BB: the inclusion of more specific orders, or variations on a movement order. From "move" to "move-to-contact" with an arc, I like better the later because I feel the troops receiving this order, expecting contact, are more prepared for it. It may not be the case mechanically within the game, but my point is that I feel refining orders, if it is to provide the player with flexibility to translate his intent into action, are desirable.

Originally posted by Bigduke6:

My worry, therefore, is that attempts to impose more limitations in order-giving, unit responses etc. will translate to, in practical terms, a bigger orders menu with commands similar in utility to "hull-down." The result might be, I fear, stupid unit behaviour.

While I would not necessary say that the hull down order create stupid unit behavior (Talking stricly for myself, it's probably better to assume the problem lay in my early stupid understanding, and improper use of) I agree with you that the orders available must be carefully laid out. That is yet another point in favor of SOPs because the way I see it, it gives the player a chance to adjust some feature inherent to a unit (like it stance, its expected reaction upon certain contingencies, etc) permanently, while leaving some other actions out (movements, fire, mainly). To me this looks like increased flexibility, yet even more realistic control, because it will not prevent me from blundering a lot and get it real bad every now and then as of now, but give a more elaborate way of translating my idea of what should be done in to proper moves and actions.

Cheers

[ January 20, 2005, 06:42 AM: Message edited by: Tarkus ]

[aka_tom_w]

HEY! WOW!

Is this the first official suggestion that the Holy Grail of FUN and Programing (the ever popular SOP option ) will be available in CMx2???

-tom w

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

Since real life isn't done in turns, ANY turn length is inherently unrealistic. Therefore, arguing about this or that turn length being more or less realistic is missing the point. One should instead be thinking about how to make turn length irrelevant, not more relevant, in terms of impacting realism.

Variable turn length is possible in CMx2 because we aren't using assumptions of 1 min turns as CMx1 did. That being said, it is unclear to us if we will allow the user to adjust turns length. There are a lot of issues surrounding such a feature that we simply don't have answers to at this point.

One way to make turn length rather irrelevant is to put more restrictions on plan changing. If you issue an order that can't be changed for 5 minutes, what difference does it make if the turns are 1 minute, 30 seconds, or 2 minutes? In that instance that unit is locked down for several turns no matter what. Now... is this realistic or good from a game standpoint? Depends on how it is done. And that is always the tough part

SOPs, more realistic fire control, better simulation of C&C, more detailed objectives, etc. are all helpful in reducing the dependency on turn length for realism.

Steve

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

One way to make turn length rather irrelevant is to put more restrictions on plan changing. If you issue an order that can't be changed for 5 minutes, what difference does it make if the turns are 1 minute, 30 seconds, or 2 minutes? In that instance that unit is locked down for several turns no matter what. Now... is this realistic or good from a game standpoint? Depends on how it is done. And that is always the tough part

SOPs, more realistic fire control, better simulation of C&C, more detailed objectives, etc. are all helpful in reducing the dependency on turn length for realism.

Ah. Hmm. Interesting. I await your ultimate decision on this point.

Michael

[Stan Hope Park]

Which games were those?

Panzer, 88 and Armor

They looked a lot like board game versions of Steel Panthers.

[MikeyD]

One possible problem with variable turn lengths is what will happen when you decide to go for 30 second turn lengths and your opponent at some distant email address decides on 2 minute turn lengths instead?

You could agree on a 'deployment phase' multi-minute turn rate that switches to a shorter 'combat phase' turn rate, but then your opponent waiting in ambush might already consider himself in 'combat phase' while you're blundering around the map in 'deployment phase'!

Variable turns sounds like a good idea that could have a lot of unpleasant baggage attached. Eliminating the turns altogether to give it more seamless 'shooter game' action sounds ideal but would turn CM into a real juggling act!

[aka_tom_w]

My guess would be that eleminating turns all together is not on the table and will never be an option.

BUT that is just my guess.

Turn Length could be a set-up setting JUST like Fog of War (Standard, NONE or EFOW) or a set-up setting like setting the time for turn time to complete the turn in TCP/IP like 5 mins, or for quick play 1 min.

In the game both players would haggle back and forth and agree to these settings.

The variable turn length would NOT be optional for both players it would be a GAME setting Like this

Game type = TCP/IP

TCP/IP timer setting = 5 min (for the player to make all the moves)

FOW= EFOW

Turn Length = Pick one: 30 sec, 1 min 2 min or 3 min

BOTH players start the game with that setting and it is SET for the entire game like EFOW and it cannot be changed in the middle.

These longer turn times (2min - 3 mins) might be appreciated by PBEM players because it would mean MORE action and fewer e-mails swapping back and forth.

Shorter 30 sec time limits might be good for newer players, playing FAST against the AI for practice or for a QUICKY against a human playing via TCP/IP.

With the possibility that some SOP's will be available in the new engine I would like to think it might be fun to let the game run for 2-3 mins and watch and see (BIG leap faith in the TacAI and SOP's AND the new engine there!) and then trust what happens, rather than intervene every darn minute to reissue new orders.

I guess I think I might like to sit back and watch for a longer period in between orders, mostly just to be entertained. Remember this is the guy that set up the ONLY AI vs AI battle in CMBO I have ever heard about. By setting up two laptops face to face via tci/ip and setting the time at 1 min and issueing 30 mins worth of orders to each side on turn 1 (playing my self) I managed to hit GO on both sides and sit back and watch the game for the next 60 minutes. IT would automatically start the next crunch exactly one min after it showed the movie. We were all 5-6 of us playing a board game at the time and we would check in every now an then inbetween board game turns to see how each side's AI units where doing against each other. I only ever did it once but it was entertaining to watch. (sort of)

I would like to lobby most vociferously for some expanded options with regard to turn time ( I figure options are always good for ALL players as long as the changes are optional )

-tom w

Originally posted by MikeyD:

One possible problem with variable turn lengths is what will happen when you decide to go for 30 second turn lengths and your opponent at some distant email address decides on 2 minute turn lengths instead?

You could agree on a 'deployment phase' multi-minute turn rate that switches to a shorter 'combat phase' turn rate, but then your opponent waiting in ambush might already consider himself in 'combat phase' while you're blundering around the map in 'deployment phase'!

Variable turns sounds like a good idea that could have a lot of unpleasant baggage attached. Eliminating the turns altogether to give it more seamless 'shooter game' action sounds ideal but would turn CM into a real juggling act!

[ January 20, 2005, 09:16 AM: Message edited by: aka_tom_w ]

[aka_tom_w]

Great news Steve

THANKS!

Many wargamers (even my old friends in their 40's now) still think it is NOT a wargame because the "hexes" are GONE!

I could NOT tell them that the hexes were ARTIFICIAL in the first place and should NEVER be there, but they didn't get it.

You could say the same about the 1 minute turn time, except we all know we don't want to turn this thing into a Real Time Simulation (RTS what does the S stand for?) so there must be a pause somewhere to issue orders, I think that is a fundamental FEATURE of the Magic of CMxx.

Yes any turn length is "inherently unrealistic" but even though you say this we KNOW you don't mean it would be MORE realistic if there were no turns and the game evolved into a RTS military SIM? (right? )

"One should instead be thinking about how to make turn length irrelevant, not more relevant, in terms of impacting realism."

Would the RTS (no turns) make the turn length more or less relevant? Since we know the game will NOT be RTS I guess this question is not worth asking....

So carry on...

sorry for the addition of more "noise" to this thread.

-tom w

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

Since real life isn't done in turns, ANY turn length is inherently unrealistic. Therefore, arguing about this or that turn length being more or less realistic is missing the point. One should instead be thinking about how to make turn length irrelevant, not more relevant, in terms of impacting realism.

Variable turn length is possible in CMx2 because we aren't using assumptions of 1 min turns as CMx1 did. That being said, it is unclear to us if we will allow the user to adjust turns length. There are a lot of issues surrounding such a feature that we simply don't have answers to at this point.

One way to make turn length rather irrelevant is to put more restrictions on plan changing. If you issue an order that can't be changed for 5 minutes, what difference does it make if the turns are 1 minute, 30 seconds, or 2 minutes? In that instance that unit is locked down for several turns no matter what. Now... is this realistic or good from a game standpoint? Depends on how it is done. And that is always the tough part

SOPs, more realistic fire control, better simulation of C&C, more detailed objectives, etc. are all helpful in reducing the dependency on turn length for realism.

Steve

[ January 20, 2005, 10:00 AM: Message edited by: aka_tom_w ]

[Tarkus]

Originally posted by aka_tom_w:

(RTS what does the S stand for?)

Real Time Shooter

sorry

[aka_tom_w]

Doh!

thanks , sorry

I don't play the RTS style so, yes I totally forgot about the "Shooter" part. (focused here on the "simulation" part)

-tom w

Originally posted by Tarkus:

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

(RTS what does the S stand for?)

Real Time Shooter

sorry </font>

[David Chapuis]

Originally posted by Tarkus:

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

(RTS what does the S stand for?)

Real Time Shooter

sorry </font>

[Tarkus]

Ahem, just to be perfectly clear here, the real meaning of RTS is Real Time Strategy. My above response was to express my personnal view on this type of game as far as the "strategy" part goes.

Sorry for my unclear answer Tom.