New Syrian TO&E thread

[Peter Cairns]

The random route might be a lot easier to do in game terms as it would involve a vehicle or building just exploding for no apparent reason, so all the difficult coding bits would be avoided.

It could simply be a percentage (1 to 3% isn't unreasonable) and then a location calculated on urban density and troop density giving the appropriate building car for location and a certain number of troops near by to detonation.

It would be unexpected to everyone, but especially for the US who wouldn't be able to tell if it was a random, or a planned.

Peter.

[Peter Cairns]

Random I think overcomes the gamey element.

It also means that if you are replaying a scenario, then you could get a nasty surprise, particularly if the way you think you can crack it is to concentrate your force, thus inadvertantly triggering an attack.

Peter.

[aka_tom_w]

I like it!

In any urban setting in Syria this random (I like it closer to %1 but that is just me) would add an element of unexpected "leathality" to the game that would likely be to the advantage of the Syrian, player. I like it, and I would consider it a form of "Home Field Advantage: Syria"

"It would be unexpected to everyone, but especially for the US who wouldn't be able to tell if it was a random, or a planned."

That part about unexpected AND random is good for making the US player ask himself "Was that planned or an accident, or just plain random bad luck"?

-tom w

Originally posted by Peter Cairns:

The random route might be a lot easier to do in game terms as it would involve a vehicle or building just exploding for no apparent reason, so all the difficult coding bits would be avoided.

It could simply be a percentage (1 to 3% isn't unreasonable) and then a location calculated on urban density and troop density giving the appropriate building car for location and a certain number of troops near by to detonation.

It would be unexpected to everyone, but especially for the US who wouldn't be able to tell if it was a random, or a planned.

Peter.

[aka_tom_w]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

Random is interesting, but I'm not sure we'll go that route. It is something to consider, though, so consider it considered

Steve

I was thinking "random leathality" as in a random explosion or fire or building collapse or martyr attack could be programmed into the game in addition to all the other factors Steve mentioned.

I like the %1 random event that is an explosion somewhere.

Now the question is %1 of what?

Maybe like one chance in a 100 that in one game (once) there will be an event that might (%50-%50 chance) be close enough to a US unit to do some damage? Detonation based on what premise? Proximity? Chance?

I like the random idea BUT not to exclude the concept player controlled (at least in theory) martyrs.

interesting none the less

-tom w

[flamingknives]

Although you'd soon have a number of very vocal complainers on the issue of random chance in wargames, how they can't control it and how everything is unfair and set out to spite them specifically.

Rather like those who complained about bogging, really.

[Thomm]

Somehow the idea of stuff blowing up randomly (as seen from the US side) is not too appealing to me as well!

Best regards,

Thomm

[aka_tom_w]

In a warzone a random explosion does not seem all that out of place to me?

Random explosion of a bomb maker (IED)?

Random accidental airstrike?

Random martyr sucide attack, explosion out of control of both players?

Random ammo explosions ?

Random fuel explosion?

Randow explosion of a storage shed of land mines?

Most of you know I have no real world experience in these things, so I will of course defer to the opinion of folks who have been there, but it would not surprise me that a %1 chance of a random explosion (in an urban setting only) in Syria would be an event that could be modeled in this simulation. Sort in the vain of "War is hell" (same response to folks complaining about bogging, sorry "War is hell")

But that's JUST me.

-tom w

[MikeyD]

Random exploding suicide bomber? I think this should be treated like CMx1 mechanical problems. if accidents happen they happen off -map before the game starts. No need to worry about fouled spark plugs or shoddily constructed explosive vest fuses during the combat phase.

This talk about random urban explosions sounds a bit like designing in random falling pianos. There's no telling, perhaps someone was in the process of moving a piano and was scared off by the conflict, and that piano's been teetering on the edge of that balcony all this time. The vibration of a passing Bradly and 'kersmash!' right onto a nearby corporal!

[flamingknives]

Random falling pianos? Outstanding idea!

[YankeeDog]

Oh man. . . I can't WAIT for CM:Loony Toons!

[Sgt Joch]

Originally posted by MikeyD:

Random exploding suicide bomber?

Sounds like the Kamikaze Highlanders from Monty Python..

[Siegfried]

Excuse for my awful english and my bad syntax. My mothertongue is swiss-french.

I have just seen news on television, which give those two ideas. I believe, they could show the serious and complex problems of civilian in'volvement and opinions manipulation in modern armed conflicts.

a ) Rioters :

Groups of enemy sympathizers leaded and infiltrated by terrorist operatives or syrian agents. This unit is hidden among peaceful civilians until the attack begins. As non-military fighters they can’t be immediatly shot by their enemies except if they use their secondary weapons.

Morale : Low

Damage : ?

Armement :

1. Primary weapons

- stones

- molotov cocktails

2. Secondary weapon (represent the infiltrated armed men)

- grenades and guns

b ) Human shields :

Volontary civilians or hostages who protect enemy military operations and units.

Morale : very low

Weapon : unarmed

I hope, I didn't make too many spelling mistakes.

[Battlefront.com]

Operatives will need to have a radio or cellphone to be very usefull due to Relative Spotting. Martyrs won't be carrying such things so while they can spot stuff, they can't report them. This limits "gamey" intel gathering, though of course it is impossible to prevent it entirely. With or without stealthy units.

Yes, the whole notion of suicide bombers is extremely unappealing to civilized people. Unfortunately, they are not unappealing to uncivilized people. Since they do play a significant role in this type of setting we can't leave them out.

Siegfried, you did just fine However, we can not simulate civilians. It is extremely complex, time consuming, and damaging to the frame rate. It would probably take us 2 years to simulate civilians even remotely well. So we aren't even going to try.

Steve

[Siegfried]

In fact you can't and can. Perplex ? I will explain.

It's right that coding a lot of civilian crowds and individual IA is both time-consuming and computer exhausting. But I believe I found a good, cheap and easy way. Don't do it and use squads !

1. Use some big squads (24 men or more as many as you can) with low morale

2. Give them stones or molotov cocktails, grenades and guns,

3. Place them automatically (in each new game) in the "syrian side" against the Americans. (players can disable this option if they want).

4. Try to code a random attack system (not controlled by the syrian player), the same as the bomb-suicidal Martyrs.

5. Be sure those civilians are most of the time invisible. --> only visible if they attack Americains or if they are very close of Americans troops = the closer they are the less guns they can hide.

6. Decide that they would quickly disappear (become invisible again) when they flee. --> which would simulate the sudden "among the crowd" flee.

7. Let them walk everywhere randomly on the map,

8. What's happen ? --> Unpredicatable attacks of civilians against Americans troops.

9. Optionnal : Create a malus system for them in the casualities report at the end of the game.

Malus system : (Coding)

a. civilians who attack = Syrian sympathizers = good to kill

b. civilians who didn't attack = our troops .

I really hope somebody understands ...

PS : That's sad we can't simply have moving neutral unarmed squads on the map in order to simulate civilians. The biggest problem in this case is maybe video game laws and age restriction.

[ January 26, 2007, 11:46 AM: Message edited by: Siegfried ]

[Sequoia]

I don't think any civilians in their right mind would hang around in a fire fight to take a shot or throw a molotov at the Americans. Battlefront is giving us Combatants and Martyrs which should provide us with all the irregular opposing force we need.

[aka_tom_w]

When SimCity (Maxis) decides to go into business (partnership unlikely I would bet) with BFC we might see some real breakthroughs on problem of civilians. BUT I am not holding my breath. Everytime I hear the suggestion of civilians in CM I think of SimCity or the Sims, (SimCity would be better for AI behaviour of urbanite civilians IMHO).

I think Steve's posted proposals for unconventional forces and martyrs and enemy combatants will be just the right balance. What I see is a very wise decision to do what is doable and program what is managable so it may appeal to some Defense Depts. somewhere as a training tool for leadership.

It sounds perfect to me!

Keep up the good work.

-tom w

[Siegfried]

Yes I believe Steve's propositions are good and sufficient as we can't have sim-like civilians yet.

Will the insurgents be able to use IED's and some "heavy" stuff (mortars and machine guns on 4x4, suicide vehicules, etc.) ?

[ January 26, 2007, 12:33 PM: Message edited by: Siegfried ]

[flamingknives]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

Yes, the whole notion of suicide bombers is extremely unappealing to civilized people. Unfortunately, they are not unappealing to uncivilized people. Since they do play a significant role in this type of setting we can't leave them out.

Nice soundbite Steve, but not entirely true. People who find 'martyrs' appealing aren't necessarily uncivilised. They're just not nice.

[Sequoia]

But I think there is some appeal to being able to "play" a martyr unit in a game just as there is an appeal to being able to use a Kamakaze unit in a WWII game. I don't think there's any thing demented in doing so, I think there's a sort of fascination about fighters so fanatical they'll kill themselves to hurt the enemy.

I'm not trying to glorify suicide bombers, I just think many people have an interest in playing the "dark" side, if you will, or there would be no reason for the success of the Grand Theft Auto series of games.

[MikeyD]

The Japanese before WWII were an extremely civilized people but still managed to commit some of the worst attrocities of the war - including sending their own men out to 'suicide' themselves against enemy tanks and ships. Its a fine line between sending men on missions that are likely to result in their deaths and straightforward sending them out to die. It seems to be a difference in the degree of desperation. If a soldier dies throwing a sachel charge through the opening of a mg pillbox he becomes a decorated hero. If a civilian knocks on the door, enters the bunker then blows himself up he's a monster. Either way its an ugly sad business.

[Cpl Steiner]

Personally I would love the chance to play some scenarios in which the majority of the opposition are stone-throwing rioters but there are one or two guys with guns or grenades amongst them. Perhaps this is because of my country's long involvement in Northern Ireland, in which troops had to be disciplined enough not to shoot down rioters but ready for the real bad guys to show up at any moment.

I agree that this might be feasible with large squads armed only with stones etc. You wouldn't have to worry about civilians as such as anyone not wishing to be involved would have got out of the area, leaving only the hard-core trouble makers.

[Siegfried]

A question :

Will Syria have plenty use of its special weapons (like toxic gases) ?

www.fas.org/nuke/guide/syria/index.html

Stone (and molotov) throwers, if they are included, shouldn't be really deadly but very annoying :

- un-targetable enemy

- wounded soldiers

- organisation disturbed

- lowered morale

- pinned soldiers

- buttoned vehicules

- etc ...

OFF-TOPIC :

Good scenario : Manhunt

capture of a tribal, religious, terrorist or war leader in a enemy controlled urban area (like now Sadr City in Iraq). With oppositions (stone throwers, fighters, combattants, and other this mission will be a real challenge in order not to angry the locals HQ has only freed some light and middle APC's and small/not aggressive support. The mission begins and ...

[ January 26, 2007, 03:05 PM: Message edited by: Siegfried ]

[John Kettler]

I think there's much to be said for the random event concept, seeing as how, in just the last few days alone, the Green Zone was subjected to both a brilliantly planned and executed infiltration, attack, and exfiltration, plus a rocket strike; Baghdad has been rocked by one horrific blast after another; last week, a Blackhawk full of troops crashed/was shot down, and the steady drip of zaps and counterzaps continues. To this we must add things like wedding parties misIDed as terrorists, motorists who can't/don't/won't stop at checkpoints, sectarian internecine warfare, ongoing Arab grudge settling, etc.

My own brother was repeatedly mortared (120 very exciting!) and rocketed once or twice during his Iraq tour, in addition to nearly being blown sky high by a VBIED, and it was only a few weeks ago that insurgents rocketed and blew up a huge American ammo dump. Bottom line? Crazy things happen in combat. That said, what is/is not appropriate to model in the context of a general assault scenario or some subset thereof? Further,

if SpecOp troops and other similar forces are envisioned, what provisions must be made in the code for their unique operating style?

Regards,

John Kettler

[KNac]

Originally posted by Siegfried:

A question :

Will Syria have plenty use of its special weapons (like toxic gases) ?

www.fas.org/nuke/guide/syria/index.html

Stone (and molotov) throwers, if they are included, shouldn't be really deadly but very annoying :

- un-targetable enemy

- wounded soldiers

- organisation disturbed

- lowered morale

- pinned soldiers

- buttoned vehicules

- etc ...

OFF-TOPIC :

Good scenario : Manhunt

capture of a tribal, religious, terrorist or war leader in a enemy controlled urban area (like now Sadr City in Iraq). With oppositions (stone throwers, fighters, combattants, and other this mission will be a real challenge in order not to angry the locals HQ has only freed some light and middle APC's and small/not aggressive support. The mission begins and ...

Please, remember the game is center around "conventional" -asymetric- warfare, not based on guerrilla, insurgency and occupation/stabilizitaion warfare.

When the invassion of Iraq happened, not much of this unconventional fighting had a deep impact in operations, it all started, mainly, after the invassion and when the "shock" of the invassion had passed away.

The inclussion of all this is very clever and visionary, but we shouldn't make it one of the main issues of the game, IMO.

Anyway, I see an incoming exploitation by scenario makers of this additions to the game engine.

[C'Rogers]

In my mind at least I see a fairly huge difference between Kamikaze, Martyrs, and what are generally referred to as Suicide Bombers. While what they may all be doing might seem fairly stupid and atrocious to 'civilized' people there are some differences. What makes suicide bombers so atrocious is that generally when I think of that term I think of a suicide bombing it is a person going into an area crowded with civilians and setting off his explosives. A martyr may disguise himself as a civilian and endanger civilians without care but is looking to target a military operation. A kamikaze is in military uniform and generally not hiding among civilians and solely targeting military units.

The foremost example to me is the most despicable on top of being stupid while the last doesn't seem nearly as monstrous in comparison, though still seeming fairly dumb.