BFC Please sketch the game from the Syrian point of view!

[Battlefront.com]

... but how can you focus on Syria without including big tank battles on the Golan Heights against the IDF... Merkavas vs. T-82s?

The forces in the Golan are defensive and facing Israel. If Israel doesn't attack, then there is no conflict on the Golan to simulate. Piece of cake As I said at least once already, Israel would likely sit out a war with Syria unless it was directly attacked by it. By the looks of it Syria is well aware that would be suicide. Heck, they apparently don't even think they can hold the Golan if attacked. Of course in either situation you're talking about a much wider war and man... that is something everybody wants to avoid. Especially Israel.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

The primary advantage of asymmetrical actions is the lack of a coherent military structure and battlefield organization. A conventional force must be controlled, it requires organization, discipline, and a general desire to survive as a formation. All fo these things provide a certain degree of predictibility. When you have a loosely organized force that largely fights in small, uncoordinated groups of lightly armed soldiers, whose aims are fairly modest (i.e. kill a few of the enemy while not being killed), things become a lot harder to predict. This group in this city at this time and this condition might do x. Another group in another city at the same time might do y. So on and so forth.

An example is that in the second Fallujah offensive (al-Fajr) about 70-80% of the city was evacuated prior to the operation beginning. Roughly 10,000-15,000 combat veteran Marines and Soldiers, backed by the full array of support weapons, moved in to clear the city of roughly 2,000-3000 insurgents. Some amount of Iraqi military took part, probably around 2,000. This gave the attacker a near 5:1 ratio in men, massive and overwhelming support of heavy weapons, air power, artillery, PsyOps, Military Intelligence, UAVs, and other "force multipliers".

At the end of the 7 day combat phase roughly 300 US casualties were sustained with 38 dead. I think about a dozen armored vehicles, including a few Abrams, were knocked out in the process. 6 Iraqi soldiers also died along with probably 10 times that wounded. The Insurgents supposedly lost 1200 dead, 800 or so captured, and number wounded I did not see posted.

Let's look at this like we would any WWII battle we've talked about over the last 7 or 8 years, shall we?

US had a 5:1 attacker advantage

US had extremely well trained, seasoned veterans from some of the most well conditioned units in the US military.

US had set the stage for this attack weeks in advance, including airstrikes and another previous assault.

US forces on the 1st day of the attack managed to make, at most, an 800m advance. Not in one battle, for the whole day.

US forces employed massive and overwhelmingly superior equipment with all the advantages that come with it.

US casualties, from a WWII standpoint, were quite low... 2%-3% of the total force employed (which we can assume was mostly combat troops).

The Insurgency was of course the opposite of all of this. They were outnumbered, outgunned, out trained, and out fought at the tactical, operational, and strategic levels. Yet they held out for a week and caused casualties that were more like 1:3 or 1:4 (depending on how much credit you give the Insurgency kill count) compared to the 1:5 disadvantage they were facing.

So... what to learn from this my little Grasshoppers? Well, that the best of the best in a set piece, carefully prepared environment, with unimaginable resoruces and equipment at their disposal, had a damned tough fight to gain control of the city. In short, pretty much a best case attacker scenario if I have ever saw one. Yet the defenders managed to do quite a good job of defending themselves, all things considered. Sure, they lost. Of course they lost with those odds against them. But that is not relevant to the tactical engagements.

No, just imagine if the US forces had tried to take the city "on the march". How well do you think things would have gone for the attacker?

Steve

[Vanir Ausf B]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

The Insurgency was of course the opposite of all of this. They were outnumbered, outgunned, out trained, and out fought at the tactical, operational, and strategic levels. Yet they held out for a week and caused casualties that were more like 1:3 or 1:4 (depending on how much credit you give the Insurgency kill count) compared to the 1:5 disadvantage they were facing.

If you include the captured in the loses column the ratio is 1:5, but your point still stands. If the insurgents had equal numbers, armor and more heavy weapons, like the Syrian army does, the results would be very interesting indeed. Which brings me to my next point:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />And when I mentioned T80's and BMP's, I was referring in most part to posters, not to anyone from BFC. Perhaps I should have made that clear.

Ah, thanks for the clarification. Indeed, a lot of people are having a hard time picturing a game where tank on tank combat isn't the central part of the combat. Oddly enough, after 2 years of intensive work on modern warfare I am having the opposite problem.</font>

[Battlefront.com]

I purposefully did not include the captured in that ratio since the Insurgents were surrounded. 100% casualties, in that situation, was a foregone conclusion. Full half of the surrenders were negotiated during the battle and surrendered en mas. That's different then being hauled out small numbers at a time. But like you said, my point stand whether you add them in (with the WIA which I don't know the number) or not. With those odds, firepower, protection, and flexibility... coming out 1:5 means they put up one heck of a fight.

As for tank on tank, like I said it isn't a central focus. Doesn't mean it isn't important, just that infantry is where our major resources are being spent. In CMx1 our infantry modeling was damned good, but it was abstracted more than the vehicles were. We are trying to even things up between the two, not to mention bring artillery and air up to that standard as well. This would be impossible to do if we got ourselves tied up in knots about tank on tank warfare. We'll simulate the heck out of tanks, just like we did in CMx1, but that isn't our focus. If we under simulate something by mistake, it had better not be infantry.

CM:SF can survive quite well with some flaws here and there with tank on tank combat, but enough flaws in infantry and we'll have one heck of a crappy game on our hands. Hence the focus on things other than tank vs. tank.

Steve

[Sgt Joch]

I, for one, am alot more psyched for this setting than normandy 1944 redux.

In 2007, Tank v. Tank warfare will be alot less important than in WWII. In 1991 and 2003, most Iraqi tanks, including the vaunted T-72s, were knocked out from the air or by U.S. tanks before they fired one shot. The situation should be the same in 2007. Tank v. Tank battles will be very one-sided and will get boring very quickly.

If you look at the article I posted above, these will be the Syrian units that will give the U.S. invading force the most trouble:

"• Give priority to elite commando and special forces units that can be used to defend key approaches to Syria and spearhead infiltrations and attacks. Many of these forces are equipped with modern anti-tank guided weapons and other modern crew and manportable weapons that allow them to disperse without relying on armored weapons and other systems Israel can target more easily. They are supported by attack helicopters..."

The most feared weapon in the Syrian arsenal will not be tanks but Anti-Tank missiles such as the AT-14 Kornet. In the 2003 invasion, the most feared anti-tank weapon in the Iraqi arsenal was the AT-14.

In march 2003, Iraqi commandos armed with AT-14 missiles were reported to have knocked out several Abrams tanks and Bradley AFVs, which surprised and worried U.S. commanders, although later U.S. studies attributed these kills to either friendly fire or RPGs.

The AT-14 is a wire guided weapon. The operator aims a laser beam at the target, fires, and keeps the beam on the target until impact. The missile rides the beam with input from the wire which has a maximum length of 3,500 meters. It has an optical and a thermal sight, which means it can be used day or night. The launcher weighs 19 kg (about 40 lbs) and the missile 27 kg (about 60 lbs) so it's comparable in size, weight and mobility to a WWII infantry mortar.

The AT-14 packs quite a punch. It has an effective range of 3,500 meters and contains a shaped charge that can penetrate up to 1.2 meters (i.e. 4 feet) of armour and foil reactive armored systems. To put it in CM1 terms, if a AT-14 team has a clean LOS to a King Tiger, it's dead.

The Kornet can also carry thermobaric explosives. These incendiary munitions release a fine spray of fuel before detonation, creating a fireball. Thermobaric explosives are designed to target infantry as well as light- or non-armored vehicles, such as trucks or Strykers.

Syria is believed to have up to 1,000 of these.

Having said all that, I hope the M1, T-55, T-62 and T-72s will all be included and fully modeled.

[Vanir Ausf B]

Having said all that, I hope the M1, T-55, T-62 and T-72s will all be included and fully modeled.

You forgot to mention the T-80

[imported_Captain_Wacky]

Originally posted by KwazyDog:

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

The M203, when mounted on an M16A4 rifle, doesn't have the heat shield. The M16A4 has the Pitcatinny Rail system, so the grenade launcher, and damn near everything else on it can be taken off pretty easily.

Yup, was just going to mention this, you can actually somewhat see this in the photo Steve posted above, too

I also found many where the 230 sight wasnt attached either but we can certainly add this if its use is the norm.

Dan </font>

[panzermartin]

Will "traditional" combined arms QBs be

possible in 2player mode? In CMx1 we had the

classic QB settings, with rarity, and well balanced points restriction for each side, e.g

3 t34s vs 1 tiger ratios etc. Will the same apply

for CM:SF?

Apart from the realistic campaign and

scenarios, will we get the chance as syrians to

assault, attack with unrealistic yet balanced

force selections? Will, the syrian player be able to offer a challenge to the US player beyond assymetrical warfare? Or hiding in the attics with a couple rpg's till you are dead

or untill the US side has reached the casualty limit will be the only way for a fair head to head match?

In CMBB, you could attack with crack, fully equipped panzergrenadiers along with support form shiny uber armor, even in May 1945 qbs. Was it realistic? of course not. But it kept

the game from being a Volkssturm shoot up in

JS-2 and SU-152 and offered some great playability for human vs human battles.

I know this is going to be a lot different from

CMx1 with new challenges offered for the player

but I hope you can keep some very succesful features, even if they dont always fit in this modern era type of warfare.

[Vanir Ausf B]

Yeah, that's what I'm looking at too, panzer. My concern is that the Syrians will only be competative in a very narrow range of circumstances. I expect that open desert warfare will be out of the question unless there are some restrictions on what the US can field, but I don't want every game to be MOUT with the Syrians on the defense. That's why I'm pushing for the higher end Syrians armor to be included so we can have some variety before the Euro stuff arrives in the modules.

[Dennis Grant]

I'm going to put in a request too.

I have been using CMAK as a way to practice current drills and tactics, and have been planning on introducing it as a training tool at my unit.

There is an opportunity here, with the welcome move to a modern timeframe, To practice and teach with the actual equipment used against an OPFOR equipped as they could be in reality. Wow!

Furthermore, the Canadian Army is moving to an ORBAT that looks to be very similar to a Yank Stryker brigade - infantry in LAVIII, armoured recce in Coyote (LAV 25 with a sexy mast-mount surveilance system) Armour in either the last of our Leopard 1 or (God help us all) LAV MGS.

It would take very little to be able to offer a Canadian force in the game, given that so much of the equipment is common - and much of what isn't common is very similar. Add a Mercedes GWagon and GWagon Recce, add the Leo 1, add some Canadian skins, and you're there.

I'm not asking to see Canadians take part in the single player campaign (I doubt we'd take part in it) but having a Canadian option for scenarios would have powerful training value.

Provide some way for the scenario editor to pull in actual topo map data, and you've got a planning tool too...

Pretty please?

DG

[junk2drive]

DG gave me a thought,

US taxpayer funded training sim, $5 billion

Syrian training sim, $35.00 plus shipping from BFC warehouse.

Look on Steve's face, priceless

[Bigduke6]

Ok, here's an idea for every one to shoot down.

To simulate civilians, just stick Syrian infantry without any ammution into the scenario. Make that infantry as conscript as possible. The Syrian "combat" units are same type, same weaponry. Now add in a U.S. victory condition: A "maximum" level of Syrian casualties.

What behavior would you get?

Syrian player:

1 The gamey approach is to simply commit suicide with all units to deny the U.S. a victory.

Although creating friendly casualties is to a mild extent a RL tactic against U.S. forces, somehow this gamey approach would have to be controlled. A simple approach would be to set a casualty threshhold for VP loss for the Syrian higher than for the American. Keep it secret from both players until the scenario ends, so neither the Syrian nor the U.S. player knows how many Syrians it's ok to kill, before you start losing VPs.

2. Has a whole bunch of targets to present the Americans.

3. Has real trouble getting his "civilians" to do anything, as they go to ground and panic etc. even if not directly targeted. It seems to me if conscript troop behavior can be programmed "civilian" behaviour can be at least vaguely replicated, by creating a sort of "ueber-conscripts" even more suspecptible to battlefield conditions than normal conscripts.

After all, conscripts aren't that far away from civilians, when you get right down to it.

4. Can hide legitimate troops inside the "civilians", thus replicating a very RL tactic.

5. Can attempt to provoke U.S. fire onto "civilians", thus replicating a very RL tactic.

6. Due to the death of borg spotting is unable to use the "civilians" to acquire targets beyond general terms, and frankly having civilians on a battlefield telling you about the enemy will indeed get you some intelligence, albeit hardly high-quality.

The U.S. side:

1. Has a ton of targets, but can't tell exactly which ones are legit and which ones aren't.

2. Is punished for smacking the wrong targets, especially if the U.S. player does the smacking wholesale. Calling down Spectre to erase an AK firer inside a crowd, for instance, will lose you the scenario.

3. Is rewarded for deducing which units are behaving in a military fashion, and destroying them with the minimum necessary force.

4. Is limited far more by the question "Do I want to kill that?" rather than by the question "Can I kill that?" For example, the U.S. player may not want to shoot up "civilian" crowds as a matter of course, but if several AT-14 missiles launch out of a crowded area, the U.S. commander may make a opportunity choice decision to waste the crowd, in order to get rid of the launchers.

If the VP system is a sophisticated as BFI is talking, it seems to me an approach like this to "replicating" civilians would be viable.

The task, essentially, would be to tie U.S. VPs in some way to enemy casualties, while at the same time preventing the Syrian from generating "excessive" Syrian casualties to harm the U.S. side. This is a bit complicated as compared to conventional wargame, but clearly BFI has overcome more complicated issues in the past.

I just ran a short scenario in CMBB using partisans, some armed and some no, and from the German side it's a real problem deciding which partisans are the ones you should shoot. And certainly conscript partisans are ready to run from veteran troops.

You're welcome. If it sells to DOD I only ask 1 per cent.

[ October 16, 2005, 05:02 AM: Message edited by: Bigduke6 ]

[Battlefront.com]

Vanir, we'll have to see. We aren't interested in adding fantasy equipment to the Syrian side just to "balance" things out. That isn't how we do things. I would also say that I don't think T-80s will be that much bettern than T-72Ms. Why? Without aircover and close in maps the T-80s are likely to wind up as twisted piles of metal. So I don't think there would be much difference between a user created battle (Scenario or QB) that had a dozen T-72Ms in it than there would be a dozen T-80s. If it works for the T-80 it probably would work for the T-72M, with the opposite being the case too.

Dennis, sorry... no go. We aren't in a position to be adding anything to our schedule. However, there are future Modules that could have such a force available for you to use for training.

Bigduke, the concept of civilians is a piece of cake in terms of what kinds of game effects they have. What isn't is the AI necessary to make all of that work. The civilians would have to be (overal) under the control of the AI in order for them to be even remotely realistic. This is actually harder, in some ways, to do than military unit AI. That's the primary reason we aren't going to put civilians into CM:SF. And yes, that is a final decision.

Steve

[RSColonel_131st]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

An example is that in the second Fallujah offensive (al-Fajr) about 70-80% of the city was evacuated prior to the operation beginning. Roughly 10,000-15,000 combat veteran Marines and Soldiers, backed by the full array of support weapons, moved in to clear the city of roughly 2,000-3000 insurgents. Some amount of Iraqi military took part, probably around 2,000. This gave the attacker a near 5:1 ratio in men, massive and overwhelming support of heavy weapons, air power, artillery, PsyOps, Military Intelligence, UAVs, and other "force multipliers".

At the end of the 7 day combat phase roughly 300 US casualties were sustained with 38 dead. I think about a dozen armored vehicles, including a few Abrams, were knocked out in the process. 6 Iraqi soldiers also died along with probably 10 times that wounded. The Insurgents supposedly lost 1200 dead, 800 or so captured, and number wounded I did not see posted.

A nice textbook example again, but again I feel people fail to adress my point made before that post: The city was still 20% populated by civilians. Of the male population (which, as far as I remember, wasn't allowed to leave) many were not insurgents. And that meant the US Commander could not bring the full power of avalable assets to bear and had to check twice before shooting.

Sorry if I'm going on your nerves here, Steve, but basically what I keep hearing you saying is "It won't be a piece of cake for the US Side, look at Falujah/other Iraq battles". Perhabs I'm hearing you wrong, but that's how I understand your posts.

But then, next sentence, you say "there won't be any civilians".

Like I posted before - everyone's free to image the Iraq Combat/Insurgency Scenarios if the US Commander could be 100% sure that there would be no civilians present, and every non-US/non-NATO Human in sight would be classified as enemy.

So, please Battlefront...sketch the game from the Syrian point of view (the view of the player playing the Syrian side in a QB or Scenario) - without references to counter-insurgency operations in current Iraq where "asymetrical warfare" mostly means hiding behind civilians and in citys full of same.

What exactly will prevent the opponent (the player on the US Side) to call in massive artillery and CAS support, to use massive firepower (M1A2, Stryker MGS) to take down full buildings etc.

The more I read here, the more I think this game will just not be playable (absolutly not fun) from the Syrian side. Unless you accept that the US Player can kill all your troops at a 1:4 ratio and then get a slap on the hand saying "you sustained too many casualitys" - but the Syrians are still dead.

[RSColonel_131st]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

Without aircover and close in maps the T-80s are likely to wind up as twisted piles of metal. So I don't think there would be much difference between a user created battle (Scenario or QB) that had a dozen T-72Ms in it than there would be a dozen T-80s. If it works for the T-80 it probably would work for the T-72M, with the opposite being the case too.

This amounts to saying "Doesn't matter what we give the Syrians, they will lose anyway" unless fighting in urban combat. Yay...what a challenge.

[gunnergoz]

One way to similate civilian (collateral) casualties and to encourage their reduction is to penalize the player for building destruction.

[RSColonel_131st]

Is that modelled?

[gunnergoz]

Not AFAIK. It's just in the way of a suggestion to the BFC team. I don't want to clutter up the game with civilian "units" if that can be avoided (since I think this thing will be processor intensive anyway) but I do want to see some representation of the effects and to have to plan tactics based upon the issue.

[Bigduke6]

Steve,

Fair enough, I'm not really politicking for civilians as I am sort of neutral towards CMSF anyway.

But like I say, I ran a test in my CMBB engine, and to my uneducated eye conscript partisans with no ammunition ACT more than a little like civilians, i.e., if something shoots at them they suffer morale effects, and usually if something points at them they suffer morale effects.

So I guess I take issue with your comment that programming for civilian behavior is hard to do, as from my perspective BFI has close to done it already. Man you guys are good! But to anticipate you, yes you're the designer and I am just a user, so of course you know better than me what the engine is capable of, and how hard or easy it is to model the behavior of a civilian crowd.

(Hey, I just had another idea - weakened conscript troops. I bet they would behave even more civilian-like! Gotta try that...)

Anyhoo, the way I see it if there was a way to tie U.S. VPs negatively to Syrian casualties, I bet you guys could come close to simulating civilians. But that's just me. if it's a no go then it's a no go, every dismount the Strykers see will be hostile...

[Snow Leopard]

What? low morale... No way. You forget one most importand key what made them fight...Religious fanaticism! Also some of fighters at Fallujah dope up themselves to make them feel painless and still firing at US Soldiers after get some shot wounds. Low ammo?...what about their C4 packed vests! We need to read some stories wrote by US soldiers who saw action at Fallujah.

[Snow Leopard]

Originally posted by gunnergoz:

One way to similate civilian (collateral) casualties and to encourage their reduction is to penalize the player for building destruction.

Uhhh...I don't think civilans will hang out in middle of war site. If I see one near I will order down lay down and tell them to keep hands away then check them for hidden handguns, grenades, C4 vest and else. Sometime fighters will shed weapons and walk around as civilans fool to US soldiers then will go to weapon cache to get some more weapons. I don't think CM have interest model civilians. Also most Arab building are too cheap and so easy replace.

[Battlefront.com]

in current Iraq where "asymetrical warfare" mostly means hiding behind civilians and in citys full of same.

<sigh> that's the point I've been trying to make. The Insurgency is NOT all about hiding behind civilians. That's a fallacy and I don't know how to dispel it. Reread the AAR I posted and stickied. The second battle of Fallujah wasn't about hiding behind civilians either. You've really got to remember that there isn't just one type of combat going on in Iraq, and that the stuff you see on CNN and other outlets is generally about the sorts of things that don't even qualify as tactical battles. Like blowing up 30 Iraqis waiting in line to apply for a job or something.

What exactly will prevent the opponent (the player on the US Side) to call in massive artillery and CAS support, to use massive firepower (M1A2, Stryker MGS) to take down full buildings etc.

What prevents this in CMx1 games? In theory one side had all sorts of stuff available to it that they could have theoretically employed in order to make their tactical lives easier. But in the real world each commander doesn't have the entire weight of his country hovering over him just waiting for a distress call to launch them into action. Therefore, a concern like this is no more/less valid for CM:SF as it is for any other tactical wargame we've made in the past or will make in the future.

However, we have introduced many things that will completely and utterly change the way the player's victory level is assessed. See further below.

The more I read here, the more I think this game will just not be playable (absolutly not fun) from the Syrian side. Unless you accept that the US Player can kill all your troops at a 1:4 ratio and then get a slap on the hand saying "you sustained too many casualitys" - but the Syrians are still dead.

Remember, there is not one way to play the game nor one way to enjoy it. Personally, I am interested in fulfilling my stated mission objectives. If such goals can only be met by losing every single last unit under my command, I have no problem with that. In fact, for me that is far more interesting and challenging than being given an equally balanced force. I like being the underdog, and I know a lot of other people that play CM enjoy that as well. I expect most of them will play as the Syrians and most of the "I want to win without seemingly getting my butt kicked" to play the US side.

What I am saying here is that it is probably impossible to make any non-NATOish force be able to stand up against a US force in the way you are picturing. Call it the WWII perspective. It just isn't possible. Likewise, the current era of combat doesn't allow the NATOish forces to carpet bomb cities and pound suspected enemy positions into dust with artillery just because the commander has a hunch that there might be someone there. The Monte Cassino approach to combat is over. Add the two together and you should be able to see that neither side is like a WWII force

This amounts to saying "Doesn't matter what we give the Syrians, they will lose anyway" unless fighting in urban combat. Yay...what a challenge.

Not at all. As I've said a hundred times already, tank on tank warfare is simply not a practical event to focus the game on. You keep asking how the game is going to be enjoyable and tactically interesting, but it seems like you are really saying "tell me how I can have a CMx1 style balanced armored vs. armored battle". The answer to that is "unless you are playing Blue on Blue, or Red on Red if we support it, you most likely will not be able to. That isn't our fault, it is simply the reality of modern warfare. Which is why tank on tank combat is seen by pretty much all the experts to be the minority role for armor well into the future".

gunnergoz has got his thinking cap on...

One way to similate civilian (collateral) casualties and to encourage their reduction is to penalize the player for building destruction.

Yup, that is planned. Dunno if we can do that (Charles and I haven't finalized victory condition stuff yet), but I'm fairly confident that it can be.

Now, I'll say it again... would it be better if we could simulate civilians? You bet. Is it absolutely necessary for us to do so in order to have an interesting and realistic wargame? No, just like it wasn't absolutely required for CMx1, or any other decent wargame ever made, in order for it to be considered realistic and worthy of play. We'll get in civilians sometime.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

So I guess I take issue with your comment that programming for civilian behavior is hard to do, as from my perspective BFI has close to done it already. Man you guys are good! But to anticipate you, yes you're the designer and I am just a user, so of course you know better than me what the engine is capable of, and how hard or easy it is to model the behavior of a civilian crowd.

That's the rub. It is a piece of cake to simulate what a civilian would do when shot at, but not a piece of cake to decide why the civilian should be in that spot in that way in the first place. Crowds are even worse.

Snow Leopard,

Uhhh...I don't think civilans will hang out in middle of war site.

This gets back to the comments I was making above to RSColonel_131st. For Peace and Stability Ops there is an entirely different civilian behavior than when there is an active, and obvious, military operation being conducted. I've seen a decent amount of footage from the opening phase of OIF and from Fallujah. There wasn't a civilian to be seen anywhere.

However, there were other types of situations that were encountered during the early days of OIF. When US forces moved into a civilian area that posed no resistance, the civilians came out in droves. If it was a predominantly Kurdish or Shiite population base flooded the streets and were either stunned and/or happy. And that posed some very interesting logistics problems for US forces, even if not fired upon. In Suni it was more likely to be a bunch of stunned and/or unhappy crowds. The results were sometimes different, with pot shots being taken at US troops and them responding in some way (sometimes very unpleasantly).

Now, without civilians we obviously can not do these types of situations since they require civilians. But the question is... would we want to simulate these situations even if we did have civilians? I don't think so. Not at least as a consumer type sim. However, I can see governments, militaries, NGOs, public policy research institutions, academia, etc. being VERY interested in such a sim. I think it would also be quite interesting to do from a design standpoint. So we will want to get civilians in to help flesh out the combat aspect of the sim, but it really isn't critical to simulate a lone vehicle born IED (VBIED) speeding towards a column of Abrams or a platoon of infantry facing down a possibly hostile crowd that is blocking them from reaching a point on the map. I'd like the option to do these sorts of things, but that option would probably delay the game by 4-6 months. Not worth it.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

Another way to think of the limitations modern tank vs. tank scenarios is to picture scenarios in CMAK where the Allies are generally fielding Stuarts and lowend Shermans while the Axis only have King Tigers available (with better mobility and turret rotation ). In theory such a matchup is always going to end in an Axis victory. If it is on a flat, featureless map with no other significant assets available... it surly will.

How many people, therefore, play CMAK games with flat, featureless maps with straight up tank vs. tank combat like I described? Besides the weenies that don't understand tactics and don't like losing (so they play the Axis), I don't think many do. So they play with other matchups than that and appear to be quite pleased with the game. I predict somthing similar to this in CM:SF. Some things are simply not going to be fun, just as some things certainly weren't in CMx1 games. The rest, however, will be.

Steve

[Tarquelne]

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />One way to similate civilian (collateral) casualties and to encourage their reduction is to penalize the player for building destruction.

Yup, that is planned. Dunno if we can do that (Charles and I haven't finalized victory condition stuff yet), but I'm fairly confident that it can be.</font>