Map Size Limit

[mav1]

Why should there be a limit on map size? Why not have 100km X 100km maps if you want. The game only slows down when there's calculations between unit's in contact with enemy unit's.

Target's can't be hit after a certain range, so you want need calculation's at very long range.

So don't bother with a map size limit or am I completly wrong?

[MikeyD]

Someone at some point is probably going to suggest BFC build one monster map covering all of Syria, Lebanon and... what the hell... why not Crete? I'm reminded of some of those huge 3rd party CMx1 maps when CMBB first came out. You've got troops in one corner and he's got troops in another. and despite aggressive recon and a lot of transport your forces still never quite come into contact with eachother during the whole freakin' game! After some initial big map enthusiasm map sizes started retracting again to more playable scales.

I wouldn't be against playing big maps (20x20km?), especially considering modern high speed armor, JOINT-STARS instant recon abilities, and freakishly long engagement ranges. But these extreme range engagements sorta leave platoon-level infantry tactics by the wayside.

[mav1]

It's true what you say MikeyD, you dont need these really huge maps. But why not if you want to. Leave the choice to the player. Iam a meglomaniac, so I allways want bigger and more items in my compurter games. Like I was saying it would'nt effect the computer speed but it would mean a huge landscape with comparable few troops in it. But it's tue 20x20km maps would be a good sencible idea.

I would actualy go for 50x50km which would mean you could have groups of heavy or medium guns on the map instead of just the artillary spotter. which would also mean you can have couter battery attacks.

One thing that would certainly would have to change is how long the ammo last's. Which only last's half way through the small maps at the moment.

I have to say MikeyD, Iam starting to get the feeling Iam not going to be happy with cmx2. Its going the opposite direction where I wanted it to go. The small maps are not going to do modern warfare justice. Its going to be small close combat warfare where Infantry do close combat fighting, helped out with some armour but with liitle armour combat. Its not what made cmX1 so great. Huge scope with a lot of equipment to choose from.

I dont like the sound of the campaign for cmx2, is it true you can only play as the americans and only what you are given? Which means you can't alter the campaign like you can do for battle maps?

[ July 06, 2006, 06:41 AM: Message edited by: mav1 ]

[kipanderson]

Hi,

I must confess to being a fan of the huge, mega CM game. We all have our addictions . I can confirm that it is possible to play near real world, Soviet Breakthrough Operations with CMBB. I have played in games with around 3,000 rounds of artillery/rocket fire support. I have watched 600 rockets fired in one barrage… the beauty of it all . (PS CMX1 handles massive artillery fire on quite ordinary machines. If you feel like using huge amounts of artillery, do not hold back.)

Sadly for me, but happily for lovers of smaller games, in CMSF I believe small scenarios will be the rule. Steve has made clear that most scenarios will be back to the scale/size of the original scale of CMX1. i.e. something along the company combat team scale for the allies.

However, Steve made this clear quite a time ago, maybe as much as nine months ago and a lot may have changed by now.

I regard it as inevitable that CMSF will be challenging for current machines and therefore battle/map sizes limited. However as time goes on machines will become more powerful and in a couple of years I hope to be once again playing Soviet Breakthrough Operations but with CMX2 and the live team play/Co-Op play that will go with it.

I have dream…

All good fun,

All the best,

Kip.

[mav1]

Good point there kipanderson. Make the game future proof, what you can't do now you can do at a latter date.

[Bencoder]

It seems like this is a topic that gets raised about every computer wargame that comes along. That and maximum deployable troop levels per scenario. I was reading some WWII government stuff that refers to attack fronts typically used in combat. They refer to company-sized fronts as 330-500 meters and battalion-sized at 400-1100 meters. Interestingly, all those Close Combat maps which seemed so undersized turned out to be about right for company level deployments. My feeling is that huge maps aren't very useful unless you've got the troops to fill 'em up, but there are always unusual situations. Plus, why limit yourself if it's not necessary.

I'm playing the Stalingrad CC mod right now, and it's a blast....it's just a shame that no one can up the troop unit count from 15 because newer computers could easily handle 3+ times as many on-screen units. Apparently Mattel or whoever holds the rights to the series refuses to release info related to the game code. Pity.

[YankeeDog]

Be careful of making too many assumptions about what those "typical attack frontages" really mean.

Infantry attacks were usually done in succeeding waves or leapfrogs, not with every sub-unit committed across the frontage all at once. Rarely would a combat unit engage with all of its subordinate units, all at once. You get a far better idea of what Company-level attack were really like reading actual AARs.

Somewhere back in the CMBB forums, there's a great treatment of mid- to late WWII Soviet attack doctrine, which gives you an idea of just how deep an infantry formation trying to make in inital penetration into a fortified line was. They must have been stacked up for several miles behind the initial assault wave. A typical CM scenario, running ~30min, would capture the action of only one of these assault waves.

Think of it this way: In general, when you see a Company, plus some Arty and HW support on the attack, what you're seeing probably really represents a typical Battalion-level attack. If you see a whole Battalion on your game map, plus some support assets, you're probably actually playing the spearhead of a Regimental-level attack.

There are some of the larger CMX1 scenarios out there that get roughly a Regiment or Brigade on the map. So by CMBB, the CMX1 was already up to being able to model a Division-level attack, at least for the 30-45min that such scenarios typically run.

This puts those "typical attack frontages" in perspective, IMHO.

Cheers,

YD

[MikeyD]

"Iam starting to get the feeling Iam not going to be happy with cmx2."

Hopefully that's not due to any speculation of mine - I know as little about what CMx2 is going to look like as anyone! We're all talking about 1:1 represented soldiers and individually placed rocks & trash cans. But we've also got Abrams, Bradleys, T72s and helicopter gunships. The map sizes could theoretically range from a couple city blocks for infantry platoon battles to mammoth open desert terrain for great armor sweeps. Its too early in the game to be disappointed in CMx2 yet!

Perhaps whoever is designing the game maps will read this thread and be inspired to throw in some mega maps for us to do epic cavalry charges across.

[mav1]

It looks like that the map size limit will be 2x2 km. My dreams of massive maps have been smashed.

Iam going to have to sulk for a couple of days for the unjustice of it all.

I WANT MY BIG MAP! wahhhhhhhhhhh.

[panzermartin]

I would be happy with a 3x3 limit. I'd like some space for manuevering and long range tank duels. In an open desert with sand dunes and a couple of tanks, I dont see any hardware taxiing.

[Speedy]

2km x 2km sounds a little small considering modern weapon ranges.

[Nicdain]

it seems to me the max dimensions were 4x4 km:

from game features:

Map sizes as tiny as 224 meters by 224 meters up to a massive 16 square kilometers

[YankeeDog]

Originally posted by mav1:

It looks like that the map size limit will be 2x2 km. My dreams of massive maps have been smashed.

Iam going to have to sulk for a couple of days for the unjustice of it all.

I WANT MY BIG MAP! wahhhhhhhhhhh.

Where are you geting that maps now have a 2x2 km limit? Has there been a recent update somewhere that I missed, stating that the max map size has been cut down to this?

As of 30 seconds ago, The following quote is still up on the "Features" section of the CM:SF website:

Map sizes as tiny as 224 meters by 224 meters up to a massive 16 square kilometers

16 sq. km would, of course, be a 4kmx4km square, not 2kmx2km.

Did I miss something more recent, contradicting this?

[panzermartin]

I'm confused :confused: The latest info was about 2.22 x 2.22 Km map sizes, yet the final features list says 16km2?

[Speedy]

Getting the 2x2 from the scenario design guide that is linked to in another thread.

[Nicdain]

I think that the scenario design guide, being still work in progress, contains old info not yet updated.

[Speedy]

http://homepage.mac.com/spaderunner/Scenario_Tutorial1/1-8.htm

create a map up to 2144m x 2144m

Hopefully it is a typo.

[YankeeDog]

Hm. Ya. Obviously, either the map editor walk-through or the website, is wrong. Let's hope it's the former!

[MikeyD]

Moon's repeatedly said maps could get to 4km x 4km, which works out to the 16 sq km mentoned on the CMSF website. I bet the 2000m x 2000m figure was taken from a screenshot of the 'default' blank map when the editor's first opened. You can rest assured a map can be built in the game big enough to slow even the most robust system to a crawl

[Kineas]

Regarding big map limits, there are some problems:

- Earth surface curvatore

- floating point number precision (computer programs use special numeric types, which are not designed to model 100km long trajectories precisely, though workarounds may exist)

- nevertheless 20km x 20km is absolutely possible, but command time span will be the limiting factor

Regarding CMx2:

- 2kmx2km ~ 4km^2 area limit exists

- 4km x 100m maps are possible! So we can have Blue on Blue armor battles (on an airport runway, but let's not demand too much at first)

[George MC]

It's a typo in the manual (actually it was me not fully realising how you could make the map bigger!). I can confirm that you will have 4Km by 4Km maps. Just a question of whether you can play anything on it - by that I mean CMSF is light years ahead of what we all know in CM. The maps alone will blow our minds, but they do take a while to make, and they have a hit on the frame rate of your PC. So although you can make large maps it might be more of a challenge for people to play out scenarios on them depending on what the spec is on their machine.

As Rune has stated you have to mind that I wrote this a while back. The manual is being updated so what is being published at the moment is still a draft and a draft based on a BETA build from several months back. Things have moved on considerably in all respects. Plus I was still working out all the ins and outs of the game (The editor is a game in itself and a very additive one at that - although it is easy to use so you can equally dive straight in and start building scenarios).

But then when CM came out most people coul'nt play the large scenarios, now several years down the line large actions are playable. I guess the same will hold true for CMSF. Many people now would not have a machnine that could handle a 16sq Km map with several compnaies worth of stuff on map, but a year or so down the line it will be possible as machines upgrade.

FWIW I have found myself playing in RT more than WEGO and enjoying it - but you need smaller units to make RT play enjoyable. Guess it'll be each to their own but whatvere people like/want I'm sure CMSF will give it to em. I'll tell you one thing - you won't be disapointed!

Cheers fur noo

George Mc

[Kineas]

Originally posted by George Mc:

It's a typo in the manual (actually it was me not fully realising how you could make the map bigger!). I can confirm that you will have 4Km by 4Km maps. Just a question of whether you can play anything on it - by that I mean CMSF is light years ahead of what we all know in CM. The maps alone will blow our minds, but they do take a while to make, and they have a hit on the frame rate of your PC. So although you can make large maps it might be more of a challenge for people to play out scenarios on them depending on what the spec is on their machine.

That's very good news!

Can visibility be reduced to a smaller value, like 1500m? CM got this feature, Shift+W as I recall. That way you can play bigger maps on slower video cards. The LOS checks will still use the CPU though.

[yuvuphys]

If the only limit is 16km^2, then something like 80km x 200m or 16km x 1km maps should be possible.

[George MC]

Originally posted by Kineas:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by George Mc:

It's a typo in the manual (actually it was me not fully realising how you could make the map bigger!). I can confirm that you will have 4Km by 4Km maps. Just a question of whether you can play anything on it - by that I mean CMSF is light years ahead of what we all know in CM. The maps alone will blow our minds, but they do take a while to make, and they have a hit on the frame rate of your PC. So although you can make large maps it might be more of a challenge for people to play out scenarios on them depending on what the spec is on their machine.

That's very good news!

Can visibility be reduced to a smaller value, like 1500m? CM got this feature, Shift+W as I recall. That way you can play bigger maps on slower video cards. The LOS checks will still use the CPU though. </font>

[Sergei]

No, the limit is 4km x 4km. The limit is not about area.