Real-time, turn based engines and maximum game size.

[kipanderson]

Hi,

I am not one of those with any concern about the use of a real-time engine, as opposed to a turn based system, for CMX2. Well not in terms of the game play anyway. I expect still to use the WEGO option in most games but when playing very small games, say commanding a platoon V a company against the AI, it will be fun to use real-time . It will make a change. Also, once we get Co-Op play in the second title real-time may also be refreshing when each player only commands a very small force. Once again, say each player in a team commanding a platoon.

However there is still one aspect of the move to a real-time engine that may ambush me. That is the reduction in maximum size of battle that will result from the replacement of a turn based engine by a real-time engine.

Over the years it has long been the accepted wisdom on this forum that one of the hits you take when moving from a turn based engine to real-time is a “massive” decrease in game size. For a given processor power this reduction may be as much as from a game of one battalion v two reinforced battalions over a 2km by 2km map with CMX1 down to one company v two companies over a 500m by 500m map. The current set of new real-time wargames, Red Orchestra http://www.redorchestragame.com/ is an example, reinforces this view. You will find the fact that armour v armour battles can occur at 800m impresses their fan base. Of course, to CM fans 800m is not very impressive. A 1,000m by 1,000m map would not be enough. The average CM map is 2km by 2km…. and often more.

I am reconciled to the fact that the huge battles enjoyed with CMX1, brigades v reinforced battalions over 3km by 3km plus maps are gone for good. The greater detail of the close-in modelling and the fun of being able to play real-time in very small games compensates for this loss. Just .

However, I am nervous that the move to a real-time engine will mean that even battles of a scale of one reduced battalion v two battalions over a 2km by 2km map may be impossible. No one is more of a fan of CM than I, but if such battles do become impossible the price for the move to real-time may have been too high.

The problem with smaller battles than the current typical size is that you loose context. Context matters. I know the new form of operation is modelled specifically to increase context but if the end result is still just a series of company V reinforced company sized battles something will have been lost. In my very prejudiced view .

I know from Steve’s posts that a few weeks ago the editor was finished and thus that real sized games are now been played and tested. Not just bits of unconnected code. I would be very keen to know what the teams experience has been with different powered systems and different sized games in CMSF. If the news is bad better to know now than ambush us with the news later . CMSF will still be by far the best of the wargames out there even with much smaller battles.

But keeping my fingers crossed that the typical CMX1 game of one battalion v two battalions over 2km by 2km maps will still be possible… with latest systems anyway .

Looking forward to CMSF come what may,

All the best,

Kip.

[Cpl Steiner]

kipanderson,

Far from being pessimistic about it, I get the impression that the move to a real-time engine can only benefit turn-based play. Why? Because we will still be able to break up play into an orders phase and an execution phase, as far as I am aware. The only difference will be that, for turn-based play, ordnance in mid-flight will remain in mid-flight at the end of a turn, rather than falling in a timeless end-of-turn phase as it does at present. That, and maybe the added flexibility of user-definable turn length. I am pretty sure we will still be able to play WEGO in the new system. If you ask me, full real-time play will be a novelty for the odd battle and not the norm.

[kipanderson]

Cpl Steiner,

We agree about the benefits of real-time it is “only” the potential reduction in maximum game size that is a worry to me.

The basic rule is that systems struggle far more with real-time than with true turn based engines. This is why CMX1 has such huge battlefields, or can have such huge battlefields, compared to real-time games.

If the hit in maximum game size is as great as I fear it maybe… better to know now.

All the best,

Kip.

[Cpl Steiner]

kipanderson,

Sorry, I hadn't grasped that you were also including the performance implications of real-time. Yeah, in that case I imagine you are right. However, I'm pretty sure it won't be long before computer hardware catches up and we can play the larger battles again in CMx2, as long as Battlefront don't put in artificial size restrictions and you don't mind upgrading your PC in a couple of years time!

[Peter Cairns]

I am not as concerned about unit numbers as map size.

With modern weapons having engagment ranges of over 2,000m then i'd like to see maps of ideally up to 5km by 5km, giving plenty of room for manouver etc.

for me I'd rather have two companys fight it out on a 9km2 map tham three battalions on a 4km2 one.

Peter.

[Cpl Steiner]

Peter,

I think for CM:SF we may see maps of this size but only for the odd armour battle in the desert, which will be rare due to US control of the skies. For most battles we will probably see smaller maps with predominantly built-up terrain and mainly infantry on infantry engagements.

Having said that, I don't think larger maps per se will cause massive problems for CM:SF. The LOS map will be bigger, but as I understand it this is generated pre-game. I think number of units has a far bigger impact.

[SteveP]

Are we perhaps confusing the nature of the game engine with the style of play. Most of what goes on in the game engine is done in real time now. The TacAI, which is a huge component of the engine is all real time. Spotting is real time. Combat results are calculated in real time. I've seen pretty compelling evidence that the AI even gives movement orders in real time now (not just in the so-called "orders phase"). If you can think of something that will change in the game that conforms to "the accepted wisdom on this forum that one of the hits you take when moving from a turn based engine to real-time is a “massive” decrease in game size," I'd be interested to know what it is.

I'm still not exactly sure what BFC is contemplating for the "Real Time option" but I have to assume it is mostly a style of play question -- that is, you don't get to halt the action while you give orders. And yes, I assume if you prefer to play that way, you won't be commanding a battalion when you do it.

[kipanderson]

Hi,

When it comes to the difference between real-time and turn based engines you only have to look at the scale of battles to see the difference.

CM and the Madminute.com Civil War games are the only PC games I play because they are only two to pass the quality threshold, in my view, so you will be more familiar with other games than I am. Having said that I do carefully follow sites such as wargamer.com http://www.wargamer.com/ in the hope of finding a new game that is up to scratch. On wargamer.com there is a clear trend for real-time games to have far smaller battlefields, levels or whatever they call them, than CM even with far higher recommended system specs. Steve has already admitted in a previous discussion that the move to a real-time underlying engine does mean that the AI will not be quite as good as it could be with a turn based system. The AI in CMX2 will still be better than in CMX1 but not as good as it could be if CMX2 were turn based. According to Steve.

You only have to see the length of time it takes to process a turn in a very large game of CM to see that in real-time the system would be over matched. In very large games it can take more than a minute to calculate a one minute turn.

This is not wishful thinking on my part in that I very much hope Battlefront will post to reassure me that one battalion v two battalions over 2km by 2km maps will still be possible. But having read the reviews on other real-time games I remain nervous that the maximum game size may be a lot, as opposed to just slightly, smaller than in CMX1.

Time will tell… Steve and his chums should know by now as I guess they have started playing full games.

All the best,

Kip.

PS. Anyway… as I understand it “real-time” games are in fact “turn- based” but with each turn being just a second or so… so I read somewhere

[SteveP]

Still think there's some confusion here. BFC isn't crippling the engine in order to have a real-time option. The game already mostly runs in real time. Yes, in a real large battle, the calculations can take more than a minute to complete, but that doesn't matter because you could never play a real large battle in real-time anyway. Too many units to keep track of. Maybe there will be some sort of limit on the size of the battle if you choose the real-time option. I also don't think that BFC is punting on significant StratAI improvements because of the real-time option. I think they are punting on those because they don't want to invest their time there.

[Cpl Steiner]

OK, we have to make a distinction between number of units, map size, and AI move plotting, as they are all completely separate issues, as has already been said.

Considering number of units first, Steve has said on many occasions that for CMx2, company on company engagements will be pretty much tops. This is what they are designing the game to be able to cope up to. Anything more, though not artificially disallowed, will stretch the game engine for most PCs. Steve has also said, however, that the exact same case applied when they designed CMx1. It is only hardware improvements since then that have allowed larger numbers of units to be featured, such as in a battalion on battalion engagement. So, the same logic applies to CMx2. It will probably be able to cope with more and more units as hardware power increases. Note that the extra processing required for real-time is implicit in what Steve has said, as he is saying that CMx2 is being designed to handle exactly the same number of units as CMx1 (when it was originally designed) AND to be real-time.

As to map size. Well, I think Steve has also said that some sort of LOS map will still be generated for CMx2. Thus, although the game will be doing a lot of calculations in real-time, LOS won't be one of them. Whether or not point A can see point B will be just a simple look-up on a table, taking a fraction of a second. Map size should therefore not be an issue either, other than in the fact that it takes progressively longer to setup the LOS map pre-game for larger maps, which is already the case for CMx1.

Finally, we come to AI move plotting. This can be broken down into Tac-AI and Strat-AI. For the Tac-AI, there is probably a harder job, as units have to react to events on the battlefield intelligently and in a split second. However, most of this will be fairly basic stuff like, "if I am under fire, seek cover". I can't see this being a big issue personally. The Strat-AI doesn't have to react in a split second like this, so I don't see real-time affecting it much either. Units will presumably not need new orders every second but rather every minute or so, staggered so the computer can allocate processing time to them. In any case, this mainly applies to AI controlled opponents.

I have high hopes that the game will cope, but as others have said, we will have to wait and see. However, bear in mind that it is doubtful Battlefront would have spent any time developing the game as a real-time engine if they thought it would suck compared to turn-based.

[mav1]

It will be a shame to sacrifice big maps for a smaller action game. Being able to create big maps is what I loved about Combat Misssion. So I hope a choice will exist for people who like to play on smaller or larger maps. Maybe the best thing to do is not create artificial limits on the size of the map. So that as computers get more powerful you will be able to create bigger maps with more and more units on the map. So how about being able to play brigade v brigade on a 10kmx10km map, by the time cmx3 comes out, as computers get more powerful.

[MikeyD]

Map size will probably have not much effect on realtime play, at least judging from what seems to be happening with Drop Team maps (hard to tell how just big they really are from the screenshots).

I want to say that I recall Moon once saying that realtime may turn out to actually be preferable in LARGE-scale games! Maybe I'm hallucinating on this. It may have been that with the new engine a lot more of the details of deployment can be safely left to the AI - if you're willing to give up some of the more fiddly individual control, to 'go-with-the-flow'. Its those small scale battles that you'd want to hover carefully over individual units, playing these scenarios in classic WeGo mode.

Still, the thought of calculating individual bullet trajectories in realtime during a Company-size engagement sounds daunting. Not on my old slow system, that's for sure! Eh, but what do I know - another thing we'll have to wait for the actual game to find out about.

[kipanderson]

SteveP, hi,

Do remember that even with the WEGO option on the underlying engine will still be real-time in CMX2. All that is happening is that every minute the real-time game pauses to take on new orders. But even with the WEGO option the turn is not calculated first as in CMX1. In CMX2 when both players have hit the Go button the real-time engine just kicks in and off it goes based on the orders given during the pause but processing as it travels through the minute to the next enforced pause. .

Cpl Steiner… I agree with much of what you say but not completely.

CMX1 was optimised for platoon plus v company battles…. just as CMX2 is. I would have it no other way . This is because at the heart of CM, and before it in cardboard Squad Leader, is the manoeuvre and control of individual squads. You see the battlefield from the point of view of the individual squad, machine gun, AT gun, tank and such. Only for reasons of “fun” many of us wish to play with lots of squads, machine guns, AT guns and tanks all at once… we are greedy . When Steve announced CMX2 back in the autumn my first concern was that CMX2 be optimised for the same scale and scope as CMX1… the answer from Steve was a much repeated Yes… it is optimised for the same scope and scale of battle. So the fact that CMX2 is optimised for the smaller company scale battles I regard as a very good thing.

However… it is still the case that for any given level of complexity of modelling and simulation, with a given number of units, real-time is more challenging for PCs to deal with than a genuine turn based system such as CMX1. Added to this, PC processing power no longer advances at the rate it did three or more years ago. There has been a major one off jump due to dual core, as long as the program is threaded, but advances in core processing power have greatly slowed compared with some years ago.

Charles will have come up with all sorts of cunning ways to lessen the hit taken by the move to real-time. Also… as I explained earlier I will enjoy the option to play CMX2 in full real-time. Added to this I imagine playing smaller games in CMSF due to the setting. But when we move on to WWII I am keeping my fingers crossed that battalion scale battles will still be possible. WWII was a true high-intensity war and as such the density of units in real WWII battles was often, mostly in my view, such that battles of a scale of one battalion in defence attacked by two battalions +, over a 2km by 2km map, makes for a more realistic and fun way to break up WWII operations than company level. But each to their own.

Looking forward to CMX2 come what may,

All the best,

Kip.

[MikeyD]

Ah, let's not forget that in regards to the numbers of actual troop polygons seen on the map a 1:1 represented CMx2 Company will be about the same size as a CMx1 Battlion. A 1:1 represented CMx2 Battalion would probably rival Grognards for sheer numbers of troops on the field!

[SteveP]

Originally posted by kipanderson:

Do remember that even with the WEGO option on the underlying engine will still be real-time in CMX2. All that is happening is that every minute the real-time game pauses to take on new orders. But even with the WEGO option the turn is not calculated first as in CMX1. In CMX2 when both players have hit the Go button the real-time engine just kicks in and off it goes based on the orders given during the pause but processing as it travels through the minute to the next enforced pause.

OK, so with the real-time option, the graphics data is pumped immediately to the computer display rather than being stored and then shown as a "movie." I don't see that as a big change, except that the real-time option wouldn't allow battles so big that the calculations take longer than a minute (wouldn't be a problem if you choose the WEGO option). The other change (at least I assume this) is that in the real-time option you have to give your orders while the game flow continues, rather than freezing everything at sixty second intervals or at your own "pauses". Again, I don't see that as a big change to the engine. The fact that the graphic display of the calculations is presented after the calculations are complete does not, to my mind, make CM a turn-based game. A turn-based game would be one in which we were taking turns. I still think that CM is fundamentally a real-time engine now. However, it's not important that we agree about that. I'm just saying that I think you should not be concerned as long as you are still willing to play in the WEGO style.

[kipanderson]

Hi,

Yup… 1: 1 will be fun… happily we do not command at 1: 1 only watch the action at that scale having given orders to squads and sections. The graphics cards will certainly have a hard job in CMX2, as they should. The first game in a new series was always going to demand a huge leap in system requirements. As others have said above, in a couple of years time the system requirements will look far less demanding.

The close in modelling will be more detailed but remember that in the second release we will get Co-Op play. So even in big games the individual may only command a smallish force.

I should add that I feel myself very lucky in that all the features announced for CMX2 where on the top of my wish list. CMX2 will be exactly the type of game I hoped it would be. But I hope someone from Battlefront will post to let us know what type of system is likely to support what size of game in CMSF.

Be the news good or bad I am sure we will all cope

All good fun,

All the best,

Kip.

PS. "I'm just saying that I think you should not be concerned as long as you are still willing to play in the WEGO style." I hope you are correct… you may well be as I make no claim to really understand these things. In CMX1 one can play huge games. I have successfully played with Soviet forces of 3x infantry battalions, 1x SMG battalion, 60 T34s and over 3,000 rounds of artillery and rocket ammunition in support. All against a reinforced German infantry battalion with mines, wire AT guns and such. A breakthrough operation over a 3km by 3km map .

PPS. That reminds… I hope the Ubber nature of mines and wire in CMX1 is tweaked CMX2 .