I quit...CM too unrealistic

[Nac4]

I a just returned from reading every thread dealing with campaign development and operational level settings to improve CM. After advocating the game for over a year, I finally quit playing it. I had no idea how ardent BTS's stance was against improving their game and their market. BTS has vigorously defended against the design or aiding the design of an Operational supplement. They argue that division or corps level support and logistics are "beyond the scope" of CM. However, they focus heavily on maintaining realism and boast that their game greatly reduces the effectiveness of "Gamey Tactics". In the end, not allowing for a dynamic and realistic operational setting has lead the majority of gamers to use CM not as a simulation but as nothing more than an arcade game. BTS has bred a culture of "quick-battle commander" by neccessity. Battles are resolved less on tactics but more on the allocation of fictional resources, "points" for weapons that never or rarely appeared together on battlefields. Even aside from quick-battles, BTS has managed only to create a game proporteldly based on realism whose brilliant game mechanics serve only to resolve unrealistic engagements through the use of unrealistic tactics. Why should CM commanders maintain low casualties or conserve ammunition? Why should CM commander not employ corps/army sized arty support with a full compliment of rounds? BTS's "in the scope" theory manages to scoff at realism. In war, all levels of organisation or "within the scope" of each other. Nothing is beyond the scope of a tactical engagement. Strategic commands are entirely dependant of Operational capabilities. Grand Tactical HQs deal directly with the abilities of Company commanders as they do Supreme HQs. No level of organisation is immune to the influence of others. Saying that logistics and casualty rates are "beyond the scope" of CM is akin to arguing that weather or morale have no decisive facter in the outcome of wars, campaigns, operations, battles, and skirmishes. They are all interdependant. Tactical battles aren't about objectives, they're about opportunity-cost. When you remove the repercussion of cost, you remove the necessity to fight at all. Why simulate battles when their results mean nothing, why work so hard on something when in the end, the result is less than trivial. Tactical battles as wonderfully simulate in CM are pointless without their place in the greater scheme of things. Because of their failure ot capitolize on this, players have turned to themselves. Inevitably all threads dealing with campaigns have one member spouting about CMMC. CMMC is wonderful but it serves onnly to fill a void left by BTS. For all its strengths, CMMC is cumbersome and time-consuming, its players and GMs have been forced to manually resolve issues that a computers have been doing more than effectively since Koger's Operational Art of War in 1998. I want a game that lets me play when I want to against who I want to, including AI. With the technology that exists and BTS's new founded partnerships a solution to this problem is easily constructed, but for some reason ignored. I don't believe as does BTS that I am in the minority. Every thread on this subject is full of posts, and the issue has been exausted. But there is no great alternative to the issue. When I play an operational game, I find myself wondering if a brilliant field commander would have been able to save his company against the odds. When I play a Strategy game I find myself longing for more realistic usage of terrain and weather. There is no perfect alternative but BTS has created the most solid minature on the market. Now if only they would change their stance and work up from their solid tactical foundation. But they won't. So, I quit. CMBO has worn thin on me. The curiosity of "what ifs" have long worn off. The awe and excitement of mods, textures and detailed armor hits have dissipated into oblivion. Now I want a game that makes it matter how I attack town X, how many casualties I took defending ridge Y, or how many rounds I'll have availiable to my FO after counterbattery fire. I'm done with battles that don't matter. Many would say I'm cutting of my nose to spite my face. It is true that CM is a wonderful product but is is highly faulted. BTS has the authority and means to give the game the substance it lack but they refuse to do so. Until they do this, however menial, they've lost one consumer. I can't understand how so many are anticipating CMBB which again serves only as a series of unconnected battles with tweaked graphics and gameplay. You will never have to answer to the spector of an operational CO, your victories and defeats will have no bearing or effect on a greater strategy. You may continue to use "gamey tactics" and force compositions based on fiction. But hey, at least there will be some neat soviet tanks to play around with and machine gun options. Not that taking 98% casualties against that MG42 nest would matter though.

[Captain Wacky]

Then design your own game. Until then, get stoofed

[karch]

WOW!

I'd say you'd make a killing. All you need to do is take all those brains of yours and make your own game.

I mean, this game really sucks but we all play it because it's the best one out there.

You build that game yourself and I'd be first in line to buy it.

Allrighty-then. Quit your whining, crack that code book and create a game that NO ONE WILL EVER COMPLAIN ABOUT BECAUSE IT WILL BE PERFECT.

I expect it by no later than Q3 2003.

[flamingknives]

"Nothing is outside the scope of war" you say.

The problem with a simulation is that there is only so much that you can model.

BTS spent 4(?) years on developing a game engine, within the constraints of computing power at the time. This is the engine utilised in CMBO, and in a modified version in CMBB. It's got to have limits. IIRC it uses 'fuzzy logic', which, while a step ahead of most Strategy/tactical games, is nowhere near the chaos theory that would be required to implement the game as you wish.

If I'm not mistaken, the game that you are after requires:

1) detailed topographical map of the entirety of western Europe

2) Keeping track of men and munitions across this area

3)Accounting for weather

4)Accounting for political pressure.

If you don't want to play CM, fine. I'm equally aware that operational realism is fairly poor, but it doesn't bother me. If I really wanted to the full experience of being in the army, I'd join.

What you want requires an engine rewrite.

See you in 4 years +

P.S. Don't patronise the rest of the forum just because they don't need the game to tell them if their attack on a position was well planned and executed or not

[Berlichtingen]

Originally posted by karch:

Allrighty-then. Quit your whining, crack that code book and create a game that NO ONE WILL EVER COMPLAIN ABOUT BECAUSE IT WILL BE PERFECT....

Oh, and get to know my friend Mr. Paragraph before you write your manual

[Keke]

Is this a attack by Matrix Games?

[Flipper]

Wonder where this thread will go :eek: evolution DOES NOT happen overnight...just look at squad leader and how many incarnations it went through, towards the end of its devolpment it was unrecongisable from the original...Don't cry things will be ok

[Lipperd98]

I LOVE it !!!!! I love it!!! I love it

[Shadow 1st Hussars]

Nac4, this is my friend the TAB key.

TAB meet Nac4, Nac4 meet TAB.

[rleete]

You make some very valid points, articulated in a concise manner. I do agree with your assesment, but not the part about BTS. They are making tactical level games. That is their wont, as it is their company and resources. Maybe they will create something like this, after the engine rewrite. It's all up to them.

CMMC does have it's drawbacks, the main one being the time needed to devote to it. Reading email sent to me by one who has been a participant, it sounds like fun, and well implemented. I, however, do not have the time, nor the dedication required to be involved. My loss.

So, you want an operational layer? Come up with one! Figure out what CMMC does, and write something that does the same thing. Sit down and figure out what is needed, how it would be implemented. Resource management, resupply, flanking attacks, reinforcements, salients, the works. Then figure out how it relates to the scale of a CMBO battle. Then code the whole mess. Or, if you aren't a programmer, pay someone to code it for you. It's an awful lot of work, and BTS doesn't want to do it.

An operational level game tie-in to CM would be welcome. I, too, would line up to buy such a product. On top of that, if it were of the same quality of CMBO, (and what we all expect CMBB to be) I'm sure some sort of parnership could be worked out with Battlefront. It's a wide open market, just waiting to be tapped.

[Redwolf]

I quit... message too unreadable.

[ May 27, 2002, 08:05 PM: Message edited by: redwolf ]

[Sir Uber General]

We all want those things so what you are saying is nothing new. As a software developer myself I know how much effort it will take to create what we want, especially with only a coder or two to actually make it happen. What BTS has done with what they have in terms of rescources is a fantastic effort and your words are disrepectful to that effort. Claiming they are deliberately ignoring a large part of the war effort simply because it is not in the scope of a tactical engagement is lame because you are not looking at the big picture. The scope of CMBO ends with the real-life constraints of developing software. The real world operates on money. It costs money to make software. You have to draw the line somewhere and say when we reach point X we are done. BTS have achieved this and I for one applaud them.

A wish-list of things I would love to see in a wargame is very long. I look forward to seeing your version of a wargame so I can pick it pieces.

Take care and let us know if you find something better starting at the tactical level - I'll be surprised if you do.

Cheers

[S.Sgt. Havilandt]

Come on guys,,,,he does make some valid points that should be addressed. How much better could this game be it they did what he is asking them?

Please don't flame me, but there are quite a few WWII games that are coming out, I believe at the squad level that might try this. Isn't the group from IL-2 trying something?

[ May 27, 2002, 08:03 PM: Message edited by: S.Sgt. Havilandt ]

[dalem]

Originally posted by Nac4:

I can't understand how so many are anticipating CMBB which again serves only as a series of unconnected battles with tweaked graphics and gameplay. You will never have to answer to the spector of an operational CO, your victories and defeats will have no bearing or effect on a greater strategy. You may continue to use "gamey tactics" and force compositions based on fiction. But hey, at least there will be some neat soviet tanks to play around with and machine gun options. Not that taking 98% casualties against that MG42 nest would matter though.

Well, maybe most of us understand the scale CM is dealing with and are okay with it. So you want operational level and CM doesn't give it. What about Army level? Theater level? Political level? Industrial?

Now obviously the further up the scale you go, the less relevant to the immediate company-sized battles CM is simulating things become. But the relevancy can be argued for to a degree. So are you the fool because you are crying about operational details but not factory output? Are we both fools because neither of us are worried about a possible rusty magazine ejector spring in the M1 Garand of trooper #5?

Now, for myself, I have a decent enough concept of operational realities on the West Front to make a decent scenario, make realistic QB picks when I want to, and to know when I've lost even though the points say I won. That's no different than any game that's ever been out there, board or PC.

Yuo mentioned "cutting off your nose to spite your face". Good call, because that is really what you are doing, unless you really don't enjoy CM for what it is. You say CM is "highly faulted", which makes me laugh, because at no time did BTS claim that CM would simulate the operational level. Interesting soap box you're on.

-dale

[Michael Dorosh]

He makes a lot of very valid points, and I agree with him that until some kind of operational level system is in place - or until CM lends itself well to third party campaigns - we will continue to labour under a deluge of gamey tactics, arguments about what is gamey, and a consistently high level of QB-worship.

I am hoping CMBB will at least give us more of an ability to form our own campaign layers - ie by saving maps and orders of battle AFTER a battle has concluded, and porting it to another battle, for example, or allowing one side of a battle to be generated at random while porting a previous OOB in the other side.

I am all in favour of promoting BTS' work - the premier WW II tactical wargame, and best WW II infantry game in computer history - but let's not be completely blind to the possibilities, either.

[The Fetus]

Must be that time of the month.

[Battlefront.com]

S.Sgt. Havilandt ,

How much better could this game be it they did what he is asking them?

Probably as good as Road to Moscow. Great game, as all the owners of which would surely agree with (if there were any!). In development for about as long as Charles and I have been making games. The designers of this fine simulation believe as Nac4 does that there is NO such thing as "scope creep" or the harsh realities of limited development resources and time.

Those who do not believe there are limitations to making games, all I have to say... go try it yourself and see how long it takes you to figure out that reality can not be argued with.

As for all the wonderful disrespect and narrow thinking expressed in the mega paragraph of Nac4... kindly take it elsewhere. As you can see, a lovely attitude such as the one you expressed is not going to win you friends or influence people. Least of all the very ones that have the power to make changes (i.e. us, not whiners).

Unconstructive criticism, based on fantasy standards, is like masturbation; anybody who fancies a go can do so. Unlike masturbation, there are people here to judge the quality and skill of the "performance". Nac4, for your own sake I hope you masturbate a lot better than you post because I don't see you getting a passing grade from anybody thus far for your post.

Er... perhaps a bit too harsh of me? After spending 5 years of my life, with untold number of hours, risks, and months without pay... I think I have earned the right to not be treated like this without having a little something to say of my own. On top of that there are the obvious facts that CM is held up a few more than one or two people as being exactly what Nac4 thinks it failed at -> the best, most accurate historical TACTICAL wargame ever developed. Hard to imagine so many people being proved so wrong simply by someone who has figured out how to pack a couple hundred words into one paragraph.

Steve

[ May 27, 2002, 08:25 PM: Message edited by: Big Time Software ]

[jeffsmith]

Trying to Be All Things to All People

Usually Results in Being Nothing to No-one

You want a milk get a cow

You want eggs get a chicken

You want a chickow that lays eggs & gives milk

Genetically it someday may happen

(God Help us)

but it wont do either job as well as the originals

CM (& soon CM:BB) is Great because BTS

took an Idea that filled the need for a WWII Tactical Wargame and by simply focussing on one concept and executing it to the Best of Their Abilities produced a Game (& now two) that has no equal

NOTE: Written before BTS wrote their reply

[ May 27, 2002, 08:30 PM: Message edited by: jeffsmith ]

[The Commissar]

Nac,

I would suggest you check out this game: www.gicombat.com

While the scale is substantially less then that of CMBO and it is an RTS, some of the elements you lament about are adressed. In the game you only manage a battalion, fighting with a company at most. This means you have to look at your overall supply situation, casualties, etc. while attempting to reach and/or capture some sort of objective (not sure on this point myself, do check out the provided web page if you're interested.

I make this suggestion not to praise or advertise GIC but to offer at least a little support to someone who will no doubt be flamed throughout the rest of this topic (and rightly so, might I add).

[Nac4]

A rebuttle had to be expected,

OH ARDENT DEFENDERS

Captain Wacky :

Not sure what you define as "stoofed" but I'm sure its something really wacky.

Karch&Wacky :

I don't think "this game really sucks" I feel like I made that clear. I don't necissarily feel the game itself is faulted, I think the BTS attitude is. For all their revolutionary openess to consumers, they spend most of their time ignoring or discrediting suggestions, most pointedly on this topic. Second I entirely recognise the superiority of CM and BTS's domination of this market. As I said BTS has the most solid foundation of and with it's partnerships, an even stronger ability to meet the needs of it's audience.

Though I have no intention of writing my own game, my collegues that have requested the necissary programming formats to do so as a third-party campaign setting have been repeatedly denied access by BTS. Lastly I am a fan of BTS and their products. Consumers don't effectively incite change and improvements in firms by striking out on their own, especially in this industry. I would be a fool to attempt such a thing without a fraction of the resources as BTS. Notwithstanding the fact that BTS is fully capable providing such a product that would prove superior to its current competetion and only improve its current market share.

Flamingknives:

I recognise the length of time BTS has taken in creating the CM engine and the immense difficulty it has had in doing so. I feel the tactical engine is the most difficult code of the operational game I propose.

Though not a walk in the park, building from the solid IIRC platform, an operational engine would be quit simple, comparatively. For instance, all TO&Es from army to platoon can currently be modeled from current CM capabilities. Logistics coding is perhaps the most simple proposition given an import/export function. Weather is no great mystery, I wouldn't even complaing about historical climactic data, day to day over Europe, the records are ample. As for topigraphical maps, I wouldn't expect BTS to provide as such. CMMC and every University Map and Geo library in the US alone has proven that this is no daunting task. Maps would undoubtly appear as infectiously as texture mods. Modders would include maps with Operational level scenarios. Even those gamers who couldn't get maps of their arena could make them or use a generator. Although a player using a generator would less likely be interested in a "realistic" operational sim.

Political pressure would be difficult to deal with however, and a good point is made there. There is no question that follow a series of histiry altering tactical battles, socio-political implementations would have wide scale ramifications. But I don't think that it would be difficult to form a random event generator or event dependant algorithms. Not too difficult.

You can hardly equate asking for comprehensiveness and realism from computer sim with wanting to join the armed forces. Besides even then I would be missing Shermans, and SS units.

Lastly I had no intention of patronising the rest of the forum. I apologize if that is how it appeared. I simply want to open another dialogue.

Berglightingen:

Point well deseved and well taken. I trust my lack of paragraph breaks didn't happer your ability to understand my post.

Keke:

No, this is not an attack by Matrix

Flipper&Karch:

I would hate to live in a society where criticm is deemed as "whining" and "crying", but apparently in this small culture I do. I think I offer a constructive and well-advised point of view. There is nothing unhealthy or weak as the terms "whining" and "crying" imply about raising questions as to the products we buy.

Shadow 1st Hussars:

Shadow meet Space Bar

Space Bar meet Shadow.

TAB takes you to add post, not a paragraph indent. This isn't Word.

[MrSpkr]

Coming from someone who has posted all of two times, I think you wasted too many words on him, Steve.

The phrase "Git stoofed" has a much nicer ring.

I do agree some of his ideas would be nice additions to the game, but to imply that this game or any other of this scope sucks because those features are missing is, simply put, stupid and short sighted.

Nac4, if you want something with all the intricacies and limitations of operational level warfare, might I suggest you go topple some banana republic and declare war on a neighbor. That way you can enjoy all these real world limitations to your heart's desire.

If that isn't what you wanted, then do something else (I must admit I stopped reading after the third or fourth run on sentence and skipped straight to the last sentence), but stop whining that a game that appears to fill the niche it is designed for quite well doesn't meet some unrealistic standard you have set in your brain. I've not seen you make any effort to discuss any improvements, let alone make any positive contribution to the game.

Steve

P.S. Are you sure you aren't GunnyBunny in disguise or somefink? Just wondering.

[Battlefront.com]

Michael,

He makes a lot of very valid points, and I agree with him that until some kind of operational level system is in place - or until CM lends itself well to third party campaigns - we will continue to labour under a deluge of gamey tactics, arguments about what is gamey, and a consistently high level of QB-worship.

Wrong. If we, or someone else, made this the arguments would still be there. Just the nature of the arguments and the specifics would change. I can promise you that without the slightest hesitation. Why? Because EVERYTHING that is not actually real is artificial. EVERYTHING artificial can and will have flaws, shortcomings, limitations, etc. And because of that EVERYTHING will be argued over, worked around by "gamey" players, result in "unrealistic" end results, etc.

Gamey issues will NOT go away just beacuse the line between what the simulation is now and what it "could be" is shifted. It just makes people look at the next line and say "you haven't gone far enough". That's just the nature of the beast

That beaing said, contrary to the rather negative views up top about us not caring or being morons, we do understand that CMBO does have flaws. We told people BEFORE the game shipped that it would not be perfect, nor would it ever be. We also promised to keep moving things forward and not sitting on our butts like some other companies I can mention. And the first example of how much we put our money where our mouth is (LITERALLY ) is coming up for release pretty soon.

CMBB will not solve every problem with computer wargaming, or CMBO specifically, since there is no way to do that. However, much of the arguing, gamey play, and blind "QB-worship" (as you call it) will go away with CMBB. Rarity and a host of major changes, including to Campaigns, ensures this will happen.

People can still opt play much of CMBB in a gamey way like CMBO, but there will be far less arguing about it because those people will be playing with various features in the "off" position. Other gamey stuff won't happen any more because the fixes are fundamental and have no on/off toggle. But, as I said above, there will be gamey exploitation of the system. There are three constants in life:

Death

Taxes

People figuring out how to bend/break rules/systems/trust in order to win at all costs

Steve

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by MrSpkr:

I do agree some of his ideas would be nice additions to the game, but to imply that this game or any other of this scope sucks because those features are missing is, simply put, stupid and short sighted.

You don't think the way the game is approached by many people sucks, though? The endless threads on Fionn's new rules, for example? The dude isright on at least one count - there is no realistic incentive for force conservation in a single CM scenario. (Fionn's rules deal more with force balance, I realize, which is another artificial concept of necessity imposed by the playing of CM one battle in isolation). Perhaps this is simply endemic to this type of game, and if others want to go the trouble of artificial workarounds, that is fine. This includes house rules, Fionn rules, gentleman's rules, or whatever rules you want to enforce. But the fact remains that rules outside of CM are of necessity being imposed.

Which is ok by me; it gets a bit wearisome figuring out (sometimes the hard way, as my run in with Phan showed) what is "gamey" to some and not "gamey" to others.

A campaign layer is one solution to this; or at the very least, it takes the focus of off single "balanced" encounters and makes the player see a different set of priorityes. I don't say CM sucks because it lacks one, and I am not sure I even expect BTS to want to provide one - certainly not with CMBB.

But can you honestly say that force conservation is something perfectly applied by CM players, or better put, something that can't be abused in the course of a single CM match?

Perhaps I am blind in not seeing any malice or insult intended in the original post. I simply saw a (not very well crafted, admittedly, and certainly not diplomatically stated) honest posting of an opinion.

Kind of embarrassing to see the hostility and insult thrown back at him. I thought this community was capable of so much more creative thought and analysis than that.

Or has the subject simply come up too many times for the veterans of the board to have time to listen?

EDIT - Just read Steve's post and that makes sense to me. I honestly can't go back and look at that single paragraph again, I got a migraine the first time. If there are really references to BTS being "morons", then he deserved what he got.

I appreciate, Steve, what you say about artificiality, and how CMBB will help alleviate some of it.

But I reiterate that I hope some flexibility will allow would be "campaigners" to implement their own house rules - realistic or not - through creative use of the scenario editor and other tools you see fit to provide us with.

[ May 27, 2002, 08:48 PM: Message edited by: Michael Dorosh ]

[Moon]

I would like to add one thing - CM is played by many people in many different "styles". There are certainly many "quick-battle commanders" out there, and they might even be the "loudest" bunch (simply because many are organized in public ladders), but there are others. I would dare to say "many others" even, who like me, often judge a scenario or battle or campaign not by the points or victory levels, but by the fun they had while playing or even just simulating and re-playing a historical action. CM is to many people what they want it to be, and when you're striving for that top placement on your ladder, there is nothing on earth we could do to prevent someone fomr playing that way. Well, almost nothing.

CMBB will address some issues. Without going into details I'll just name two: the CMBB operations have been heavily revisited, which will result in making them more playable and enjoyable as in CMBO; and some new calculations have been introduced for premature game endings additional to the "global morale". But CM is a tactical wargame. Tactical is one keyword here, game is the other.

Martin

[Tarquelne]

"BTS has vigorously defended against the design or aiding the design of an Operational supplement. They argue that division or corps level support and logistics are "beyond the scope" of CM."

You seem to have gone straight from "BTS isn't doing what I want them to." to "CMBO sucks." Gamy tactics, QB purchace problems, lack of an operational level, etc.

I don't think that's valid. I do get the impression that while there are many improvements BTS could impliment addressing your concerns, they'd much rather be working on something else. Yah, in a way they are ignoring a lot of possibilities. So? If you start criticising a developer for the games they _aren't_ making, you really need another hobby.

In my years of gaming I've learned that with most games you get a lot more out of it if you invest some of your own time in improving it. (Right - just like almost everything else.) You don't necessarily have to be a programmer yourself to do this. And you don't even have to download some mods. Concerned about gamy tactics and purchaces? Come to the BB here and discuss what they are and how to prevent them. You want operational level consequences to help determine success in a scenario? Make up your own. (I've done it, it's not that hard. The game does tally up losses at the end of a scenario - it already does the time consuming part for you.)

Don't want to invest your time? Well, fine, but why criticize BTS for not wanting to spend their time on it either? They must have things they consider more important.

And if those things are lounging around eating figs rather than determining the rotation speed of a T-34/85 turret, more power to 'em!