Biggest shortcoming of CM system

[gunnergoz]

Blah, blah FAULTS blah blah INACCURACIES blah blah UNFAIR blah blah UNREALISTIC blah blah ad infinitum.

That fairly sum it up?

Sheesh...he gets 150 hours of play out of a $50 computer game and complains about it...I have a closet with several thousand dollars worth of computer games that don't have a total of 150 minutes' play on them, let alone 15 minutes for many.

All I can say to critics like this one is: if you can design and publish a better game, DO IT.

Sheeesh...

[THumpre]

My small and inconsequential list of suggestions for this thread....

To all those who say that there is too much micromanagement....read the description of the game next time BEFORE you buy it. If you don't like to micromanage, don't play a TACTICAL squad/platoon level game

to thse who say that artillery isn't powerful enough in CM....play against a competent opponent. They will show you the "power" of arty...

To all those who say that it is to tiresome to have to set up all of your troops in a 300+ point match....don't play with so many troops.

To anyone trying to discuss anything with M. Bates...stop trying. It is alot like trying the teach a pig to sing....

I don't know why I get sucked into reading these kind of posts, they always set my teeth on edge. The constant tinny sound of nattering whiners pissing and moaning because their pet "gotta have" feature isn't in the game is old in the extreme. Combat Mission isn't perfect, not even close(sorry boys but it is the best that there is so far. If you don't like it, then damn well don't play it.

[Vanir Ausf B]

Originally posted by Bastables:

bah this is nothing we used to have a chap called Oscar who used to say CM would not sell due to its 3d nature.

I spent some time with the search engine to read some of his old posts. Interesting. I also ran across some guy named Thomas Davie who swore he would only play CM from the top-down 2D view. I wonder how long he stuck to that promise?

[Mattias]

Originally posted by Vanir Ausf B:

Didn't he suffer from some kind of condition that made him nauseous when viewing CM in the 3D environment?

Its an opening for all kinds of jokes I suppose but as I recall it was simply a form of motion sickness.

--

M.

[ March 26, 2002, 06:53 AM: Message edited by: Mattias ]

[Vanir Ausf B]

Originally posted by Mattias:

Didn't he suffer from some kind of condition that made him nauseous when viewing CM in the 3D environment?

He said 3D games "like Quake" made him puke. *shrugs* I guess it's possible.

[Andreas]

Originally posted by ianc:

Reality - I'm in a house next to a grove of trees. I look at the trees and cannot see out the other side. Hence I know that unless there is someone actually in that grove, I can safely move behind it out of enemy LOS.

CM - My unit is in the house, and it sees the grove of trees there. Since trees are just represented by a dark patch on the ground and few tree models, the unit can't immediately tell whether it can be seen as it attempts to move behind the trees.

Make sense? The impreciseness of the graphical treatment of the terrain can lead to problems or uncertainties which would not be encountered in real life.

ianc

Sorry Ian, does not make sense to me. I think that CM does model this exactly as it is in reality. Unless you are at a given point, you don't know what you can see from there. Once you are there in CM, you use the LOS tool.

I would think I am being dense, but Martin does not get it either, and he is way smarter than me (not just saying that because you pad the bar bill Martin).

[M Hofbauer]

Originally posted by Vanir Ausf B:

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

Didn't he suffer from some kind of condition that made him nauseous when viewing CM in the 3D environment?

He said 3D games "like Quake" made him puke. *shrugs* I guess it's possible.</font>

[DeadHorse]

Please stop beating me!!!!!

[KNac]

First of all, those who are insulting people moaning or whining. I don´t know if you were refering to my posts (I hope no because I wasn´t flaming at all, I only was suggesting; I think that this is the best WWII tactical game by far and I love what BTS has done and cannot wait for CMBB) but anyway who is worse? the man who moan and whine (or sometimes, makes suggestion, because there is people that get flamed because posting suggestions) or those who insult who is whining? I think both so demostrate that you are an adult or at least that you are mature.

Second and returning to the topic, my suggestion was about doinf better CM (or incoming games) and offering wider possibilities, those can be "actived" or "desactived", for those who don´t know tactical warfare (at least in WWII) went from platoon size to battailon size with great number of support assets, anyway you can go to a wider tactical level (or very small strategic level) with the current CM engine, I have done a operation that involves a german regiment with LOTS of support (AFV, vehicles, guns, off-board artillery, etc). So, IMHO I think that when more possibilities offer the game better (or no?) so if the possibility is you can still get it off and it will not "hurt" you, and for human vs human games "rules" can always be used.

So, I was suggeting some way to decrease the level of micromanagement in somethings, when you are playing the type of games I described, or even battailon size games it can be "a pain in the ass" to take care of ALL the little details, to give orders for a turn you can be 2 hours if you canread my suggestions (page 1&2 I think) and give your opinion, please avoid flaming NOTE that this is only a suggetion and I will play the game and love the game anyway.

[ianc]

Sorry Ian, does not make sense to me. I think that CM does model this exactly as it is in reality. Unless you are at a given point, you don't know what you can see from there. Once you are there in CM, you use the LOS tool.

Hmmm... I guess I'm just not doing a good job of explaining it. Being an infernally lazy git, and not wanting to hijack this thread any further, I'll decline to carry it on. If I can summon sufficient vestiges of gumption, I'll try to start a new thread on this in future to better get my point across. Thanks for the comments Andreas and Moon,

ianc

[russellmz]

Originally posted by ianc:

Hmmm... I guess I'm just not doing a good job of explaining it. Being an infernally lazy git, and not wanting to hijack this thread any further, I'll decline to carry it on. If I can summon sufficient vestiges of gumption, I'll try to start a new thread on this in future to better get my point across. Thanks for the comments Andreas and Moon,

ianc

what they mean is, use the LOS tool to see how far you can see through the woods. (the orange part is what you can see) so if you can see about an inch of orange through, then that means the area of about an inch from the dangerous "enemy" edge of the woods is where any bad guys can see you.

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by russellmz:

what they mean is, use the LOS tool to see how far you can see through the woods. (the orange part is what you can see) so if you can see about an inch of orange through, then that means the area of about an inch from the dangerous "enemy" edge of the woods is where any bad guys can see you.

More or less what I said.

Michael

[Radar]

Well, one short coming I come across is when I'm in the setup phase and I don't know if my troops will have the benefit of a foxhole on the first turn. Often, I'm playing a scenario blind and the time I spent working out unit placement turns into a waste as there was no allowed entrenchments by the designer, but the briefing had led me to such conclusions.

I would like to see a message to be displayed in the setup phase informing the player if entrenchments are available. This could quickly tell me what kind of setup to prepare for. :cool:

[TerrorX]

Where the Hell are the Resource Collectors????

[Richard Morgan]

Apologies if someone has said this already: I haven't had time to read the whole thread,(I am still on page 1) and it is now time to go to work. M Bates, have you ever had to dig a fire trench, or even a shell scrape in a wood? There are roots everywhere, and it takes much, much longer than the average timespan of a CM game.

Someone else mentioned moving out of cover to go through buildings. This would seem realistic if your troops lacke explosives to blast their way through load-bearing walls. The practice is known as 'mouseholing' and hopefully it will be covered in CMBB or will it?? I would welcome an assurance on this point.

All the best,

Richard.

[Ozzy]

Originally posted by Radar:

Well, one short coming I come across is when I'm in the setup phase and I don't know if my troops will have the benefit of a foxhole on the first turn. Often, I'm playing a scenario blind and the time I spent working out unit placement turns into a waste as there was no allowed entrenchments by the designer, but the briefing had led me to such conclusions.

I would like to see a message to be displayed in the setup phase informing the player if entrenchments are available. This could quickly tell me what kind of setup to prepare for. :cool:

You get foxholes if you are "Defender" and not playing a Meeting Engagement.

In the main game interface you can see beneath the flags of Axis and Allies who is defender and who attacker, even in setup phase.

(or am I wrong here...?)

[Radar]

Hey, thank you Ozzy for pointing that out! I had overlooked that. It does appear to show the difference of a Meeting or Attack/Defense type fights.

[Slapdragon]

Originally posted by Richard Morgan:

Someone else mentioned moving out of cover to go through buildings. This would seem realistic if your troops lacke explosives to blast their way through load-bearing walls. The practice is known as 'mouseholing' and hopefully it will be covered in CMBB or will it?? I would welcome an assurance on this point.

All the best,

Richard.

I am not sure mouse holing will be included, since most accounts of it do not make it an activity which was practiced on the spur even by engineers, but as a more planned out means of avoiding some obstacle leading up to an attack. As such it would probable be like a bailey bridge or an engineer's scissors bridge carried on an AFV -- something that would show up at the beginning of the scenario already in place, but not something that is done in the midst of fighting.

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Slapdragon:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Richard Morgan:

Someone else mentioned moving out of cover to go through buildings. This would seem realistic if your troops lacke explosives to blast their way through load-bearing walls. The practice is known as 'mouseholing' and hopefully it will be covered in CMBB or will it?? I would welcome an assurance on this point.

All the best,

Richard.

I am not sure mouse holing will be included, since most accounts of it do not make it an activity which was practiced on the spur even by engineers, but as a more planned out means of avoiding some obstacle leading up to an attack. As such it would probable be like a bailey bridge or an engineer's scissors bridge carried on an AFV -- something that would show up at the beginning of the scenario already in place, but not something that is done in the midst of fighting.</font>

[Silvio Manuel]

Originally posted by Radar:

Well, one short coming I come across is when I'm in the setup phase and I don't know if my troops will have the benefit of a foxhole on the first turn. Often, I'm playing a scenario blind and the time I spent working out unit placement turns into a waste as there was no allowed entrenchments by the designer, but the briefing had led me to such conclusions.

I would like to see a message to be displayed in the setup phase informing the player if entrenchments are available. This could quickly tell me what kind of setup to prepare for. :cool:

At the "Scenario Depot" website, every battle listing says, "Defender Digin?" I think this is what you are looking for. I doubt that it means tanks being dug-in; it prolly means infantry. They only have a 1000+ searchable scenarios for you to check out...

[Cauldron]

Not that this thread is probaby read much being a week old.

I just wanted to comment what is the POINT of offering a suggestion, such as the originator of this thread only to ne told " your thinking is faulty", and 101 " leave the game alone coz it's my baby" replies.

The idea that I should sit out in a field "with a radio" to see what its like to have a machine gun fire on me or any of the other 101 suggestions which just mean " you don't know what the F*&k your talking about" really put an end TO discusion.

It becomes just a ****fest that somehow satisfies the one with the biggest ego.

What a suprise........

[WWB]

Originally posted by Silvio Manuel:

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

Well, one short coming I come across is when I'm in the setup phase and I don't know if my troops will have the benefit of a foxhole on the first turn. Often, I'm playing a scenario blind and the time I spent working out unit placement turns into a waste as there was no allowed entrenchments by the designer, but the briefing had led me to such conclusions.

I would like to see a message to be displayed in the setup phase informing the player if entrenchments are available. This could quickly tell me what kind of setup to prepare for. :cool:

At the "Scenario Depot" website, every battle listing says, "Defender Digin?" I think this is what you are looking for. I doubt that it means tanks being dug-in; it prolly means infantry. They only have a 1000+ searchable scenarios for you to check out...</font>

[BlackVoid]

WOW.

Unfortunatly I was away from home last week, so could not react to the postings.

My main point was (many did forget), that MINISCULE, SMALL, ALMOST NON-EXISTENT LOS issues decide way too many things. I doubt that many WW2 battles were fought out with units taking potshots through narrow openings, and treelines. No commander could meticulously check every inch of terrain for LOS. I beleive they chose a more direct approach.

In a recent game I have played, the enemy had 4 guns. I killed each of them by area firing next to them with vehicles. It was mainly luck, but I managed to find positions, where I had good LOS very near to the guns, but not to the guns themselves. The guns never had a chance of firing back.

In another battle I hid 3 of my vehicles behind a treeline. When I checked their LOS, they did not have any. Later, my enemy (by sheer luck) navigated some of his light armor to places where they had LOS on my armor and killed both.

LOS issues really can and do get out of hand in a CM game. My intention with this thread was to brainstorm some ideas that might help the issue, instead it turned into a flame-war.

Absolute spotting is part of the problem, but that would be very hard to get rid off.

Someone has mentioned that more varied terrain would be good. In a way yes. But, terrain is oftenm too complicated as it is now. To many groups of trees, too many elevation changes. Look around in your area (wherever you live) and you will find that there are more terrain features, but they tend to be simpler (in most cases anyway).

Some ideas to improve the current situation:

1. You cannot have LOS through very narrow places.

2. Vehicles and guns should not have LOS through any high vegetation (not including the woods they are stayin in). Yes, maybe they can spot a tank through it, but firing through should not be possible.

3. If a spotted area is smaller then a given size: no LOS to that place.

Still this solution would not be perfect.

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by BlackVoid:

2. Vehicles and guns should not have LOS through any high vegetation (not including the woods they are stayin in). Yes, maybe they can spot a tank through it, but firing through should not be possible.

I think this is a good idea, but I would also exclude whatever terrain the target is in.

Michael

[dalem]

Originally posted by BlackVoid:

WOW.

Unfortunatly I was away from home last week, so could not react to the postings.

My main point was (many did forget), that MINISCULE, SMALL, ALMOST NON-EXISTENT LOS issues decide way too many things. I doubt that many WW2 battles were fought out with units taking potshots through narrow openings, and treelines. No commander could meticulously check every inch of terrain for LOS. I beleive they chose a more direct approach.

Interesting. How would this "direct approach" work?

-snip examples-

LOS issues really can and do get out of hand in a CM game. My intention with this thread was to brainstorm some ideas that might help the issue, instead it turned into a flame-war.

Absolute spotting is part of the problem, but that would be very hard to get rid off.

Someone has mentioned that more varied terrain would be good. In a way yes. But, terrain is oftenm too complicated as it is now. To many groups of trees, too many elevation changes. Look around in your area (wherever you live) and you will find that there are more terrain features, but they tend to be simpler (in most cases anyway).

Huh? Simpler? Right now, sitting at my desk in my office at home typing this, I have a keyhole LOS into an upper floor bedroom window three houses away. I can't see anything else on that house, and I can't see much of the houses in between. In rural settings it can get even weirder. The simple types of terrain you're describing do exist, and they exist in CM - open ground, low, rolling hills. Fighting in such terrain is no picnic for the attacker or the defender.

Some ideas to improve the current situation:

1. You cannot have LOS through very narrow places.

What is this, Squad Leader? Or any of a hundred other hex games I've played?

How narrow is "narrow"?

What is your justification for changing the extant mechanic as regards the width of LOS pathing?

2. Vehicles and guns should not have LOS through any high vegetation (not including the woods they are stayin in). Yes, maybe they can spot a tank through it, but firing through should not be possible.

Why not?

How is this not covered by the "% Exposed" value already imposed when firing through cover?

3. If a spotted area is smaller then a given size: no LOS to that place.

Define "spotted area".

What size is reasonable?

Why?

Still this solution would not be perfect.

Indeed, your "solutions" seem to indicate you'd be happier with a more abstracted LOS mechanic. Kind of like wargames such as Squad Leader, etc. use.

I think that LOS is perhaps more critical to the fighting techniques modeled by CM than you're giving it credit for.

-dale

[ March 30, 2002, 02:20 PM: Message edited by: dalem ]