Topic: The trap awaiting all tactical, Eastern Front wargames (add bit here)

[Cauldron]

Hy,

After reading the informative article above it looks good per Soviet penalties and the ability to improve thought the war.

However, untimately it won't make a blind bit of difference.

Why?

Because perimiters do not draw up correctly ( esp: campaign scenario's)and do not encircle. Instead they use questionable sized units ( eg: halftracks, a few platoons of infantry) to draw the most favourable line to the attacker.

If any of you are like me, you will want to develop large scale battles with realistic "front lines" a.s.a.p. UNTIL that is done, we as scenario designers CANNOT deliver.

Ohh and much more reinforcements ( like 20 instead of 5) would be a great help too.

Just one word........ perimiters........

[TSword]

The campaigns in russia were so vast in scale, that it will be difficult to resemble some of that vastness and unprecedent terror in the "tiny" scaled CMBB. I regularly have great difficulties to create playable scenarios of Company/Battailon sized Battles in CM for such tiny battles like the ones in the alsace for instance (Hatten, Rittersweiler).

Now to imagine Kursk with it's unsurpassed scale, where Corps,Divisions, Regiments attacked on broad front against unbelievable massed deep russian defences is hard for me to imagine with the scale of CM(BB), maybe a battaillon on a 300 m wide and 3000 m deep map....

[Battlefront.com]

Gotta strongly disagree with you Cauldron, at least with what you speicifically stated.

The problem with ANY wargame is "scope and scale". The only full way to simulate the Eastern Front is to simulate the entire conflict of WWII, including all aspects of all fronts in all theaters. This is because the situation facing the individual soldier of country x in location y on z date was influenced by all of this. In other words, nothing happened in a vacuum.

Not only would the game have to simulate everything at the high scale, but it would also have to simulate everything down to the individual soldier. Afterall, the fact is battles were won and lost by individuals, not cardboard chits representing a melted down mass of numbers.

This reality, which absolutely can not be argued with at all, is also the reason why nobody has made such a simulation, and nor will anybody. It is too massive and too detailed, not to mention unplayable.

Scope and scale are therefore the most vexing problems faced by wargame designers. No matter WHAT level of detail the designers choose to focus on, there is ALWAYS someone who wants it to be spilled over to the next level. And unless the wargame simulates each individual soldier from the first person, the argument can be made to include the next level up or down. And if that were included, someone could just as easily request that the next level be tossed in, and so on, and so on, until the full world simulation mentioned above were reached. Then, I suppose, someone could argue to have interwar years factored in, then WWI years, then... oh God, there really is NO END to this

Because there is no possible way to cleanly say "this game is about this and not about anything else" there will always be people wanting it to be more. More is not possible, so people are just going to have to accept the fact that they can only get so much. Period. The game developer, the hardware, the player, or (likely) a combination is totally incapable of allowing the scope and scale to extend beyond a certain point.

Which brings me back to the points mentioned above...

Basically, if you think that CMBB can not simulate things accurately enough, as we are planning on doing, then my best advice is to not only NOT by Combat Mission but to not buy/play any other wargame ever again. The reason is simply that wargames can only simulate a small slice of the Big Picture, so no amount of "if you could just add this or that" is going to make the game inherently more accurate in the Big Picture. If CMBB simulated regimental conditions, it could then be argued that divisional needs to be done as well, then corps, then army, then army group, then front, they... ARGH

In short, you can either accept the inherent limitations of wargmes or go insane thinking about what they leave out. The choice is rather simple as well as unavoidable.

TSword, your point is not invalid either. I know of cases on the Western Front where an entire Regiment attacked on a 300m front over the course of a single day. There is simply no way that this can be simulated with today's hardware or CM's game system or player interest. I for one would never want to command several hundred units on a minute by minute basis even if my computer could. I think I would rather shoot myself in the foot and take a medical discharge instead

Thankfully, there are PLENTY of isolated company/battalion sized engagements on the Eastern Front to simulate. In fact, they were the norm. However, they are also poorly documented/covered for the most part because historians love to focus on the bigger battles (and to be fair, there is more data for these battles too). Meaning, that if a player isn't hung up on simulating Kursk or the opening battles of Bagration, the system works just fine.

Steve

[ February 01, 2002, 02:12 PM: Message edited by: Big Time Software ]

[Runyan99]

What about this point:

Originally posted by Cauldron:

Because perimiters do not draw up correctly ( esp: campaign scenario's)and do not encircle. Instead they use questionable sized units ( eg: halftracks, a few platoons of infantry) to draw the most favourable line to the attacker.

I am generally in agreement with Cauldron on this point. I prefer to play operations over scenarios, because I feel the extended nature of the fighting (and the lack of victory flags) makes for a much more "realistic" use of forces. However, I agree with Cauldron in that the computer is often over-generous to the attacker in terms of drawing new front lines and setup areas in between battles.

What are operations going to be like in CMBB? Has the operations system been improved/tweaked at all?

[kipanderson]

Hi,

Steve wrote,

“No matter WHAT level of detail the designers choose to focus on, there is ALWAYS someone who wants it to be spilled over to the next level.”

I confess; I am one of them!

For the engine re-write I have two main wishes. One is live team play, multi-play. There are many reasons for this, fun is one of them, even greater realism is another. Would help with “relative spotting and relative command”, “if” I understand what is meant by these terms. However, the big one is an operational layer.

The two most popular scales for wargames, that is real wargames and not shooters, has for twenty-five years been individual squads and AFVs, i.e. CM and ASL on the one hand, and battalion/operational on the other. One day, someone will put the two together. A quality operational game, the standard manoeuvre units being battalions, the scale one inch to the mile/km. With the option to zoom down to the CM scale to fight any individual engagement, a program very like the Quick Battle generator taking the parameters for the CM battle from the operational map/game. Instead of being input manually by the players, as is the case in QBs now. However, the entire operational game could be played at the operational level in the standard way, if people wished.

Steve and co may not wish to do this, but one day, someone will do it. I hope it will be BTS because I trust them to get it right in a way I do not quite trust others. If done to the usual BTS standard, and I know Steve and co would never lower their standards, it would be another ground breaking first.

All the best,

Kip.

[Jeff Duquette]

Kip Said: The two most popular scales for wargames, that is real wargames and not shooters, has for twenty-five years been individual squads and AFVs, i.e. CM and ASL on the one hand, and battalion/operational on the other. One day, someone will put the two together. A quality operational game, the standard manoeuvre units being battalions, the scale one inch to the mile/km. With the option to zoom down to the CM scale to fight any individual engagement, a program very like the Quick Battle generator taking the parameters for the CM battle from the operational map/game. Instead of being input manually by the players, as is the case in QBs now. However, the entire operational game could be played at the operational level in the standard way, if people wished

Amen to that bro. I think Close Combat just began scratching the surface with CCIV and CCV with the enjoyment\immersion possible with a combined tactical and operational level wargame. I would love to see a more elaborate operations layer added to CM at some point.

[kipanderson]

Jeff, hi,

Yup, I have noticed that you and I do agree on a lot of matters, but am sure not all. Get two military history nuts like us in the same room, and you will get three different opinions!

However, I am optimistic that what we both wish for will happen one day. Problem is I would like to see it now, and from Steve and co. Unfortunately the mood music coming out of Steve is not good for this particular feature.

One cannot win them all!

All the best,

Kip.