Beat the borg

[Puff the Magic Dragon]

An idea that rised in another threat:

The problem of borg spotting is, each unit can receive orders or give reports, doesn't matter where on the map they are.

Just something to think about : would it be possible to build a 'line of communication' or 'command'?

If a unit has a radio, it can receive orders or give reports on each place of the map. Even if it's a cut of crew with a radio behind the enemy lines.

A unit without radio can only use

- visible or acoustic contact to another friendly unit.

- messengers (abstracted) : Realistic, but difficult for many reasons. How long does he need? How dangerous was his way? Possibly he was killed or wounded...etc etc

Sounds of course easier then it might be to programm - the 'line of com' must be tracked during the whole battle. Problems, Problems...

[CMplayer]

Puff,

The problem is not in the difficulty of programming, it is that the above idea is not clearly thought through. In particular the concept of 'give reports' is a total fuzzball. What on earth do you mean by a unit 'giving reports'? Giving them to who? The game player? An on-board HQ? How, exactly would this impact play? Be specific.

Be forewarned that the game developers have given this subject a lot of careful thought, and even more drunken thought, and some of us groupies and CM sluts have latched on and tried to follow the discussion as well. So come on, what you got?

[Puff the Magic Dragon]

DANGER - MINEFIELD

Interesting question - who gives reports to whom, and who represents the commander on field?

To answer at least this : this can not be answered . In princip the player can be seen as the superior off-map HQ unit, only that this unit does not guide each unit on-field. But this is just the only way to make the game playable, but also the reason for borg spotting. But anyway... Let's assume I am the superior off-map HQ.

The squad leader reports to the platoon leader, the platoon leader to the next higher HQ and so on. Maybe the point is delay: currently each unit knows only two kinds of command delay, for example 6 seconds when in command, 12 seconds when out of command range. Why is the delay the same, even if a unit is 5 meters out of command range or 500? For example the beloved single sniper in the enemies backyard: how can he receive my orders? In princip he needs a delay of minutes to get them. An FO for example would a completly different situation, cause he has ussually a radio. He can always operate with short delay.

Now the reports: let's assume a non-HQ unit must report their sightings to a HQ unit - not necessarily the own HQ - it would also need a small delay to give the report. This might be very short if the HQ is close enough or in LOS, while a Sniper or a crew behind enemy lines, far away from any HQ, would be absolutly unable to report something. If it engages an enemy, the enemy would be still invisble (to the player), and the unit can fight only under command of the TacAI. And the unit could report there sightings not before it has returned in command range - and then it could report spotted enemies of course only with 'generic markers'. Completly different situation if the unit is equipted with radios.

Anymway, I see the many difficulties to make this working. Maybe it's indeed impossible.

[CMplayer]

Your question about out of command radius command delays being the same at 5 meters out and 500 meters out is based on a false and very wrong assumption.

You assumed that the player represents an offboard higher HQ.

The player is the player, not any kind of HQ. But if you have to try to identify the player with entities within the game, he is at several different levels of command at once. At times he is a single squad leader, in an isolated and cut off squad, making a decision such as to 'withdraw'. At times he is the commander of a particular tank, guessing how many meters forward to drive to get hull down position against the enemy, at times he is a platoon leader deploying his squads in column, line, wedge or whatever, at times he is a higher level commander like you say.

But regardless off all these different roles, the player is also something else, which never existed on a WWII battlefield, which is a single, omniscient will, able to observe and coordinate in detail the efforts of main battle troops and cowering crews alike.

By this I mean, that even if the player adopts the role of a crew, cut off behind enemy lines, who without orders from higher ups starts to make their way across the battlefield, their movements and actions can still be integrated into the whole plan for winning the game.

So really, it makes no sense to try to identify the player with any 'in game' unit. The 'player' is a category of its own, defined by the interface and the order structure.

[CMplayer]

As for reporting:

Suppose I have an AT crew, alone in an ambush position without a radio. It can't report back to 'HQ' very easily, so enemy that it spots will be invisible to the player.

Suppose it sees an enemy AFV that it could kill after crawling a short distance to the optimal firing spot. In your system the player can't give them the order to do that, because he doesn't even see the AFV. But in the system as is, you can give that order because right then, the player is not 'HQ', but the player is simply playing the AT team.

IMO the second of the two options is to be preferred.

[Puff the Magic Dragon]

Originally posted by CMplayer:

As for reporting:

Suppose I have an AT crew, alone in an ambush position without a radio. It can't report back to 'HQ' very easily, so enemy that it spots will be invisible to the player.

Suppose it sees an enemy AFV that it could kill after crawling a short distance to the optimal firing spot. In your system the player can't give them the order to do that, because he doesn't even see the AFV. But in the system as is, you can give that order because right then, the player is not 'HQ', but the player is simply playing the AT team.

IMO the second of the two options is to be preferred.

...except the player can give an order 'engage at will' - in CMBB he can with covering arcs.

BTW, how can a gun spot an enemy out of LOS - LOS is = firing spot, isn't it?

And when the player is a single unit, why a delay anyway? Then the command delay would be always the same and depends only on this unitleaders abilites how fast he can execute the order, independent from any HQ.

[ March 02, 2002, 04:33 PM: Message edited by: Puff the Magic Dragon ]

[Puff the Magic Dragon]

CMplayer P.S.: it is beside that completly missunderstood that this gun is unable to report. If it is really left somewhere in the field, totally out of command range - what is in princip an unrealistic situation, IMO - it could still send out messengers. So it can report - but with delay. While it can still fight under AI control. Indeed this would be a realistic situation: 'Herr Oberst - the AT reports that it has started to fight against enemy tanks...two minutes ago'. Now you understand why it is stupid to leave guns alone in the area...

[ March 02, 2002, 06:28 PM: Message edited by: Puff the Magic Dragon ]

[Ace Pilot]

Puff,

I think I understand what you are saying. On the one hand, a player has to suffer through command delays, which simulates the communication problems between units and the higher level commander (the player). But, at the same time, the player can make units do things that only the units themselves should be deciding. As CMplayer pointed out, the player is constantly shifting between these different roles throughout the game. It sounds like you would like to see the game lean more toward making the player the higher level commander, rather than the squad or tank commander. I think your ideas would help push the game in that direction. I would just add to your concept the idea that the player should only be able to spot FRIENDLY units when they are in command range. Going back to the AT gun in the ambush position, if it is out of command radius, I would argue that it should not be visible to the player, except possibly as a nation icon. The player shouldn't know what it's current status, ammo supply, or even position is, let alone whether it is engaging any enemy. All the icon would show is where the unit last was and its status when its last report came in to the player. The player could still give it orders, but the ability to do so would be hampered by the lack of information available to the player, in addition to the traditional command delay. Of course, the AI would be handling all of the unseen combat that was occurring. Imagine placing that AT gun in the perfect ambush position, only to never see it the whole game because something wipes it out and the computer decides the AT gun never got off any sort of report! It would be a huge incentive to keep units in command range. And that gamey, suicidal, one-way jeep scouting mission wouldn't be attempted anymore.

I think this would go a long ways toward achieving the kind of command delay and fog of war that would be needed if we assume the player is in the role of the high level command.

Whether this is the direction the CM community would like to see CM go is another issue.

Ace

[CMplayer]

Originally posted by Puff the Magic Dragon:

.except the player can give an order 'engage at will' - in CMBB he can with covering arcs.

That answer doesn't address the issue. I said that the unit must crawl a short distance to get an optimal firing position. That is too complicated to leave to the AI.

BTW, how can a gun spot an enemy out of LOS - LOS is = firing spot, isn't it?

Simple. An AFV drives past an AT unit, say a bazooka team. It then parks just out of LOS of the unit, perhaps behind a building or a stand of trees. If the unit would just crawl a few meters they could get a shot. For the sake of a good game, the player should be able to give the crawl command to that AT team.

And when the player is a single unit, why a delay anyway?

The command delay of a squad which is so far out of C&C as to be operating independently could be taken as the time it takes for the squad leader to make a decision as to what to do. He needs time to think and motivate his squad. This delay is calculated on experience and the morale state of the squad.

Increasing the delay even further assumes that squads out on patrol only act upon receiving orders from 'higher HQ', which is wrong.

Basically, I think your proposal is still riddled with unclear thinking.

I also think that your proposal is based on trying to achieve an uninteresting goal, that of identifying the player of the game with a 'Higher HQ'. If that were really the goal, you should get rid of the entire interface, and replace it with a system where you receive messages, and then issue orders in general terms. You would just have ordinary maps to look at, and would only be able to actually see what is around your HQ location. This might be an intersting game, but it wouldn't have anything to do with CM which has grown out of minuatures wargaming and ASL.

[CMplayer]

Originally posted by Puff the Magic Dragon:

CMplayer P.S.: it is beside that completly missunderstood that this gun is unable to report. If it is really left somewhere in the field, totally out of command range - what is in princip an unrealistic situation, IMO - it could still send out messengers. So it can report - but with delay. While it can still fight under AI control. Indeed this would be a realistic situation: 'Herr Oberst - the AT reports that it has started to fight against enemy tanks...two minutes ago'. Now you understand why it is stupid to leave guns alone in the area...

It is not at all an unrealistic situation for AT teams, such as bazooka teams, to be left in ambush positions too far from their parent HQs to be able to communicate easily with them. Troops were often spread very thinly. And forward outposts, sharpshooter positions, MGs etc were often quite far from their friends.

Basically you are inventing a poorly thought through idea, which addresses the wrong problem. The problem with 'borg spotting' does not have to do with command delays. The problem is that as soon as one unit spots something, every unit which _could_ spot it is considered to have spotted it. That's why suddenly 50 yellow lines can appear on a hidden AT gun, for instance. That is the kind of situation where the concept of 'reporting' might actually be applicable in the game, not in terms of command delays.

Example:

A sharpshooter, a zook team, and a half squad are creeping about in the woods 500 meters in front of their friends. They have no radio. They meet a hidden enemy AT gun. Within a few seconds all their friendly tanks begin firing on that AT gun, even though from where they were it would have been extremely hard or impossible to see. If relative spotting is implemented, each tank would have to have the gun on its list of spotted items to be able to fire. It would have to either have achieved a successful spotting diceroll itself, or have waited until the info 'propagates' back from the scouting team. It is in terms of this propagation of info back, that you might be able to usefully employ your concept of reporting.

Command delay, OTOH, as I've said before, ought not to be affected by reporting as this would discourage scouting, and is based on the unrealizable and rather uninteresting goal of rigidly identifying the player with a higher HQ.

[CMplayer]

Originally posted by Ace Pilot:

I think this would go a long ways toward achieving the kind of command delay and fog of war that would be needed if we assume the player is in the role of the high level command.

Whether this is the direction the CM community would like to see CM go is another issue.

Trying to rigidly identify the player with high level command is definitely not interesting for the game CM. To begin with, it would mean throwing away the entire interface. Then it would require a much improved tacAI since units would have to maneuver on their own to finesse LOS problems. If you want to play a higher level commander, it would be much better to play an abstracted hex-map wargame. The whole point of CM, the thing we'd been waiting for ever since it dawned on us that computers were going to make this possible, is to put the tanks into the countryside and drive them around. If this is to be meaningful, and not just eye candy, then you need some degree of micromanaging control that corresponds to the scale of the units on the table. That means that at times you 'are' a tank commander, at times a squad leader, at times a team leader, at times a platoon leader, and in the way in which you coordinate all these activities you 'are' a sort of higher level commander, though a more omniscient one then any real life commander ever could be. That's a gaming trade-off, and the right one for this particular game, IMO.

[M Hofbauer]

it all boils down to gameplay vs realism.

we had this discussion many a time from the very beginning of CC1.

the way CM is now is obviously very unrealistic, for the reasons Helge "Reisbaby" PtMD roughly hinted at. The player has godlike omnipresence, full knowledge of the terrain down to the last turn of the road in the village 800meters ahead of the nearest friendlyforces and behind several hills.he can access all his forces all the time and check their status etc. He can give them orders which are carried out instantly (rotate, fire, withdraw) even though the unit has no radio and no other friendly unit within a 5 mile radius. Other orders are carried out with minimal delay so long as the unit has it's platoon or company HQ with it, although the player is not that Platoon / Co. HQ.

The realistic thing would be for any higher up HQ to be sitting back at a tent, miles behind the front, and receive orders by messengers with delay, and give out respective orders, and maybe (if it is a very sophisticated outfit) have occasiona radio conversation with some of his units. The player would play this on a DOS interface, with the reports coming in as text messages. No eye candy. Maybe some distant ambient sound effects at most.

And he has his original battle plan with which he briefed his subordinates. To simulate this the player could use home rules which would only allow him to give orders once, in the very first turn, and then never again through the whole battle, except for the occasional messengers noted above. You could simulate thiose messengers by having ammoless snipers run from the friendly rear edge to a certain unit. Once it reaches that unit, the player can give that unit the orders he intended to give them when he sent off that messenger. he must ignore any new threats etc. until the messenger returns and gives a status report. if the messenger unit gets killed along the way then he will simply be cut off from communications.

But...

would this be fun? certainly not for 99% of the CM players, even die-hard grogs who look for the last bit millimeter of armor strength between the fourth and fifth roadwheel of a Pz IV Ausf. H.

This is where gameplay comes in. CM is, after all, a wargame. concessions have to be made to make it a playable game.

[Puff the Magic Dragon]

CMplayer I agree, my thoughts were going into the complete wrong direction. It is of course only your fault.

I agree, the game would be not playable if it would go that direction. But it was not the core thinking. The core is : possible communiction between the units on battlefield & spotting. Indeed it doesn't matter which role the player has.

It's excactly what you've said in your forelast email. I repeat with my words:

The sniper spots an enemy unit. He is the only one who can see it, and he is not able to report it to someone else. But in the same moment, each other unit that is able to have LOS has LOS. This is simply wrong and unrealistic. It's still difficult if we assume communication between units. We all know this: 'Hey, look at that girl in the red skirt.' 'Where?' 'There, over the street' 'Where???'.....

So, indeed it would be necessary to calculate spotting for each single unit. A report from another unit is maybe available - and this only with (abstracted?) delay - and may rise the chance of spotting, but doesn't guarantee a spotting, depending on the natural ability to spot something - buttoned tanks for example are nearly bind. An unspotted unit can't be targeted. Now how would that look in CM practice:

My Unit-A spot an enemy AT-gun. Only this unit can see it directly.

1)Display on scrren

-When Unit-A is selected, the player can give a target order for Unit-A.

-When no unit is selected, the player is in 'god-mode' and can see all spotted enemy units.

-When Unit-B is selected, the enemy AT-gun is not visible and can't be selected as direct target by this unit.

2)Communictation

-Is Unit-A able to tell Unit-B about the enemy? If yes, how can it communicate? How long will it take to inform Unit-B? Both is important. To decribe the position via radio is fast, but difficult. A runner is slow, but can show the position exact. The chance for Unit-B to spot the enemy rises with the given delay and depending from the way of communication. If no, Unit-B has the same chance to spot the enemy as it has to spot any other currently unspotted enemy.

3)Indirect Fire

- The TacAI is AFAIK not able to order indirect fire somewhere on the map. The god-like player is. Well, that's a possible problem I see.

-Why should a unit fire somewhere where it can't spot an enemy? But I think this is secondary. I think an order like 'Fire on the edge of this wood, someone has reported an enemy there' is not so far away from reality as the current borg-spotting.

4)The 'gamey scouts'

-What about the crew/jeep/sniper behind enemy lines, out of chance to report back to somewhere else? As player, I can still order artillery, or order my other units to move somewhere, based on informations I wouldn't have in reality. This is a very difficult question. The only idea I currently have are control zones, like they are calculated after an operation battle. Well, I guess it's not a real good idea, but anyway. A unit within the friendly controled zone is always full available. If a unit is far away from the control zone, then I can only give movement orders, but I can't see what this unit can spot. Once it reached the friendly controlled zone, it can report all enemy spotted units as generic markers at the last known position.

Okay, rip me to shreds :cool:

[ March 03, 2002, 11:08 AM: Message edited by: Puff the Magic Dragon ]

[CMplayer]

Originally posted by Puff the Magic Dragon:

Okay, rip me to shreds :cool:

I'd really like to, but now you're starting to make sense. The system you're describing, or something like it, is what is referred to as 'relative spotting'. Everyone wants it, but we don't expect it to arrive until after the game engine rewrite at the earliest. C'est la vie, or should I say, c'est la guerre?

[CMplayer]

Originally posted by M Hofbauer:

He can give them orders which are carried out instantly (rotate, fire, withdraw) even though the unit has no radio and no other friendly unit within a 5 mile radius.

Good post. I agree. In response to the quote above:

The way you can view these orders is that they are there in order to help you tweak the tac AI a little bit. They're not so much orders from Battalion HQ (Company A, second Platoon, second squad ROTATE 45% left! = absurd) as ways for the player to intervene when the tac AI won't make the right decision for you. If you don't view all gameplay-commands as 'orders' it makes a lot more sense.

The same can be said of waypoints. The 'order' from HQ might be 'advance to point B'. The waypoints that take you from cover to cover, or skirt obstacles, are also just a way to spare the tac AI having to try to do all the thinking for us. You can also edit and drag waypoints during the next command phase to respond to a developing situation, change walk to run and the like. The tac AI just couldn't handle that sort of thing satisfactorily.

So those sorts of micromanagement commands really have more to do with the behavior of squads than with 'orders' from above. These sorts of things give us more freedom to try to handle our squads deftly, and provide for lots of the enjoyment and challenge of the game.

[M Hofbauer]

Originally posted by CMplayer:

These sorts of things give us more freedom to try to handle our squads deftly, and provide for lots of the enjoyment and challenge of the game.

which is what it's all about, I agree fully.

Helge PtMD S.,

what you are describing now in your latest post is, as CMplayer already pointed out, commonly handled under the term "relative spotting" and has been an issue on this board for quite sometime.

however, your ideas for improement for CM in such a direction go beyond just a general idea and are very sophisticated and reasonable. I would welcome them.

they will become "akut" again when BTS is about to create CM II, the new engine.

[John D Salt]

Originally posted by Puff the Magic Dragon:

An idea that rised in another threat:

The problem of borg spotting is, each unit can receive orders or give reports, doesn't matter where on the map they are.

Just something to think about : would it be possible to build a 'line of communication' or 'command'?

[snips]

Well now, this bids fair to be a horrifically interesting thread.

Much of what has already been posted is interesting, but I have a couple of handfuls of worms to add to the can.

The "realism vs. playability" chestnut is not really one I wish to pursue -- it's not clear to me what "realism" can sensibly mean in the wholly unreal world of a simulation, and almost everyone who discusses the matter confuses "realism" with "detail", which doesn't help.

The "Commander's Boots" problem has been mentioned -- does the player represent Major Carstairs, OC of "B" Company the Borsetshire Light Infantry, or is the player a disembodied spirit, one of the household gods of the Company, looking down on all its members wherever they are? The question here is really "Do you want to play a role, or do you want to play a game?". Both are reasonable things to want to do; I would be happy to participate in a MUD set in WW2, but it would render competitive gaming problematic, if not impossible.

The ultimate solution to the "Borg spotting problem" will require more effort than merely modelling communications channels and the orders and reports that flow along them. The comms infrastructure (whether using radio, telephone, flags, lights, runners or carrier pigeons) is merely the "plumbing" that permits messages to be transmitted from one place to another. What matters, from the point of view of tactical behaviour, is how the people who receive those orders or reports act on them. This, in turn, depends on how they integrate the new information into the picture of the tactical situation they currently have in their heads (as mentioned in van Creveld's superb "Command in War"). This is what is known as "situational awareness" (a web search on the name Micah Endersley might be a good start for people wanting to know more).

Can this sort of thing be modelled in a computer simulation? Yes. The technique is known as "agent-based computing". The entities or "agents" in the simulation act autonomously, in accordance with their perceptions of their world and their beliefs about it, in order to achieve their goals. In effect, each agent has its own model of the (model) world in its "head". The way in which agents decide to act based on their knowledge and belief can be categorised under three headings:

* Reactive agents. Behaviour can be represented by a memoryless finite-state machine; given the same stimuli, a reactive agent will always react in the same way.

* Deliberative agents. Such agents do not have predetermined behaviour, but are capable of making and executing plans, and perhaps of learning from experience.

* Affective agents. The responses of these agents will depend on some internal state which can be thought of as "emotion". The real interest of these is where they choose reactive or deliberative behaviour according to their current "emotional state".

The agents' pursuit of their goals may entail them collaborating or competing with other agents. I have seen a research demonstrator, which used an agent-construction kit to implement some ideas from joint intention theory, communicate with a synthetic environment to model the behaviour of a tank squadron making a flank attack on an enemy platoon in defensive positions. The point of the demonstration was that this behaviour was not directly pre-programmed by the creators, but emerged as a result of negotiation between the individual entities in thge attacking squadron (with, one hopes, some regard for the niceties of military precendece).

One of the fruits of such an approach would be that agents would not shoot at enemy agents of whose presence they were unaware (or could not infer -- their deliberations might tell them that if a friend can be seen to be shooting into a treeline, they should shoot into the same area as well). That's the borg disposed of.

Another advantage would be that deception and surprise could be convincingly simulated. Each agent is maintaining an internal picture of how it interprets the battlefield. When new information arrives, it must be integrated with this picture; this will take time. If information is received that is at variance with this picture, it is likely to be discounted. If the picture is suddenly and shockingly shown to be completely wrong, it will take time to construct a new picture -- time that may not be available. It may be safer to abandon deliberation and perform a stereotyped drill.

The business of simulating expectations and surprise suggests fresh approach to questions of troop quality and non-lethal weapon effects, too. Obviously, affective agents could have internal "emotional" states corresponding to fear, fatigue, anger, confusion and so on, which would affect their deliberations and reactions. This might provide a mechanism for simulating suppressive effects more convincing than merely treating them as results of direct-fire attacks. It might also serve as a means of distinguishing "veteran" and "green" troops, if one thinks that the main difference is the accuracy of their perceptions of danger on the battlefield. Veterans might be "sticky" because they know perfectly well when it is too dangerous to epose themselves, where green troops, knowing no better, rush in. Conversely, green troops might have an inaccurately exagerrated idea of a noisy but ineffectual threat. This would seem more satisfactory than a system of "morale ratings".

It is probably too obvious to mention, but the reactions displayed by agents in "reactive" mode could be used, as well as simulating emotional reactions, to show the drills in which troops of different armies were trained. Well-drilled troops will have these almost as additional reflexes; untrained troops won't.

It seems to me that an agent-based approach might lend itself to a treatment of leadership rather better than +1 or +2 bonuses on this and that: On the principle of "Look around you to see how scared you have a right to be", agents might take encouragement or discouragement from the observed behaviour of those around them. This might produce panic-spreading effects, especially where leaders or neighbours run for no apparent reason. The leadership task of keeping people in the picture could also be simulated -- the chapter "The Multiples of Information" in S L A Marshall's "Men Against Fire" touches on this, as does the School of Infantry's motto "Knowledge dispels fear".

So, to being these meanderings to an end, ISTM that if we can take a modelling approach based primarily on modelling human perception and behaviour, instead of modelling the technical performance of weapons, it might be possible to take a unified approach to spotting, situational awareness, command control, leadership and morale using the same basic mechanisms.

Agents are a pretty hot research topic at the moment; the kind of approach outlined above cannot be adopted just by reading a book and a couple fo papers on agents and situational awareness then sitting down to code. I'd give it at least five years, and maybe ten, before military research establishments are fully capable of exploiting such agent-based approaches in land tactical wargames. Whether the games industry gets there before them I'd say was a fifty-fifty proposition.

Anyone else on the board going to the second AISB agent-based computing symposium at Imperial in April?

All the best,

John.

[Michael Emrys]

Wow! GREAT post John D. Salt! As you note, it is probably beyond the means of CM for some while yet, but it seems to me that this is definitely the direction to be looking.

Michael

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by M Hofbauer:

The realistic thing would be for any higher up HQ to be sitting back at a tent, miles behind the front, and receive orders by messengers with delay, and give out respective orders, and maybe (if it is a very sophisticated outfit) have occasiona radio conversation with some of his units.

I think you may be too strict here. It was certainly possible, and many RL commanders took the opportunity, for a company or higher level commander to position himself where he could view the battlefield, or at least critical parts of it, personally. While this would not necessarily give him as informative a view as being right on the scene of the action, at least he would be able to judge where the most intense fighting was going on, etc. The ability to do this would obviously be complicated by terrain, weather (including time of day and use of obscuring agents), and other demands as well as the degree of personal initiative of the officer involved. I don't know yet how this could be worked into a CM-type game, should it be deemed desireable to do so. I just felt that it should be mentioned in response to your post, M.

Michael

[ March 03, 2002, 05:55 PM: Message edited by: Michael emrys ]

[wadepm]

What we need is "massive-multiplayer" CM. Each player is a platoon leader, company commander, battalion CO, etc. In your "game" you can only see what your guys see (if you are a platoon leader) or what your subordinates report to you. CMIII maybe?

[Puff the Magic Dragon]

John D Salt - isn't some of this in the game already, at least abstracted by the TacAI? And how ould it help against the borgs? Call me stupid, but I have missed it - please excuse it's bed time here .

[kipanderson]

Hi,

There are a number of very cunning and well thought out responses above. However, for me the only way to deal with “relative spotting and relative command” is through multi-play or team play.

In CM you play the part of the squad leader, the platoon commander, the company commander and the battalion commander. Not just he company commander. We will all differ on this one, but I do not want to give up the job of being the squad commander. If in some future version of CM there was team play one would only be able to see/spot what the units one personally commanded could see/spot, both enemy and friendly. But no more.

I would be very cautious about any other changes. I normally/often play CM as if a company commander, the Tactical Artificial Intelligence is so good micro-management is not always necessary. But I do not want to give up the option of being able to play as the platoon/squad leader.

I would not like to see CM become a “command game”.

I should add that I am very much after realism in CM. I play no other computer games. I only play CM because it is so realistic in terms of the tactical modelling. In my view CM is a true simulation, moving shooting military history. Changes that added more realism I would welcome, but not at the expense of being able to issue orders to all units under my command. The reason being, as given above, I want to go no being able to play CM at the level of the company commander, the platoon commander, but also the squad commander. Extreme care is needed on this one or CM could take a major backward step.

All the best,

Kip.

PS. wadepm, yup, you and I would agree on this one. Multi-play is the way to go.

[CMplayer]

Originally posted by John D Salt:

An idea that rised in another threat:

The "realism vs. playability" chestnut is not really one I wish to pursue -- it's not clear to me what "realism" can sensibly mean in the wholly unreal world of a simulation, and almost everyone who discusses the matter confuses "realism" with "detail", which doesn't help.

Since you don't pursue this issue, in your otherwise very interesting post, I'd like to take a stab at it.

I would suggest that 'realism' in a game would increase, as the sorts of concepts that you have to work with to play effectively, begin to resemble more and more the sorts of concepts that a real commander would have to think about, when maneuvering units at the same scale of abstraction.

Example:

In CMBO, on a heavily forested board, armor is clearly at a disadvantage. This is realistic. Further, in order to get the extra firepower necessary to break an infantry standoff, you might wish to rely on something else instead. This could be either OBA or massed infantry. If you mass your infantry to punch through the enemy's infantry, you will be vulnerable to his arty. So in close terrain, there is a real issue or tradeoff (in the game) between concentrating infantry and the dangers of artillery.

Now the question would be, is this realistic? Would this tradeoff be an issue in actual tactical planning at that level of abstraction in a WWII forest battle?

Further, in a game, because of the way the game functions certain techniques arise to win encounters. The more these techniques are isomorphic with what actually worked, the more we could call the game 'realistic'.

Example: If I am defending in close forest, I would be inclined to place TRPs on bottlenecked portions of my enemy's expected covered routes of approach. I would also sneak half squads or other expendible units forward to get observation of this spots, and halt up advancing enemy infantry there. At the same time, I would cover the open lines of advance, in case he tries to move quickly that way.

This technique can devastate an infantry based attack coming through woods. The question is, is this realistic? Would this work?

This opens another thorny aspect of realism, because I'm willing to suffer friendly fire casualties to carry this strategy out, which certain armies might not do for moral or morale reasons.

Perhaps I've just complicated the question further but I agree with you that realism is not just detail. Adding medics for example, wouldn't in itself add realism. It would only add realism if the kind of gameplay choices you had to make resembled the sorts of issues that would really be there, in a meaningful way.

[CMplayer]

The thing about team play is that if you want it to really work you have to make it possible for the individual players to get a victory regardless of whether their 'team' wins the overall battle.

For instance, if I am in a team game, and am given a company to command. I will gain victory points for achieving the objective assigned me by players higher in the command hierarchy, but I may also lose points for casualties. This can make me recalcitrant, or hesitant, or at least perhaps a bit slow in carrying out certain orders.

It could make the game resemble Avalon Hill's diplomacy in a way. If my higher HQ promises me some of the limited arty support then okay, I can take that hill, but if he doesn't I'll only go so far and then I'll report back that I'm 'pinned' down, if I think that will maximize my victory points at the end.

Maybe I'll end up a 'winner' along with some enemy lower level commanders.... To make it really realistic there should be prizes, like wine or something.

[ March 04, 2002, 06:46 AM: Message edited by: CMplayer ]

[kipanderson]

Hi,

We all have different views on what it meant by realism. However, I can indeed define very precisely what “I mean” by realism in CM, or any other wargame.

By realism, I mean tactical realism. That is, given the overall tactical situation, and given the decisions taken by the two commanders, the outcomes is that which it is likely to have been in reality. The overall tactical situation would include the forces on both sides, the terrain, the starting deployments, the objectives and so on …

For me, others will differ; the above definition of realism says it all. It is because CM scores so stunningly highly against the above measure of realism that I am such a huge fan of the game and all who created it. I believe it is a genuine tactical simulation. It is military history. One can model engagements.

All the best,

Kip.

PS. Any changes must enhance the tactical realism, while still maintaining the magic of the immersion we all enjoy.