1:1 representation and casualties

[Cpl Steiner]

Steve has said he doesn't see it possible to have units of wounded and first aiders "spawn" mid-game from other units, for obvious reasons. However, as we have 1:1 representation, it should be no big drain on the CPU if some men in a unit become "porters" for the wounded in the unit.

I imagine things like HMGs will require animation of the crew picking up and carrying the weapon. Maybe some crewmen are even shown carrying ammo boxes etc. What if a wounded man was treated like a piece of equipment like an HMG and one or more men in the squad were designated as "crew" for this wounded man?

Once assigned as crew/porter to the casualty, they always pick the guy up, carry him, and set him down at the end of their movement (requiring a delay like the setup time of an HMG whilst they make sure he's OK). The animation for this has been done in other games, for instance "Full Spectrum Warrior", so it is definitely possible.

The wounded man stays with the unit, so we don't have to worry about the CPU being hit due to units splitting up. The only game effect would be a bit of extra animation, and a slowing down of the squad due to the presense of the man being carried. For instance, maybe the whole unit is now only allowed to walk or jog rather than run flat out, just like a HMG team.

If a unit had greater than half its men in a wounded state, it would become immobile, because there would be insufficient "porters" for the wounded. Of course, you could get round this by cheating and saying that a wound is upgraded to a KIA if there are insufficient healthy guys left to carry all the wounded.

[Cpl Steiner]

Further to my last post,

Why not allow transfers between adjacent units. If two teams are slowed down by wounded, all the wounded could be placed in one team, which would provide replacement fresh men for the other. The team with all the wounded would now be immobile, but the other team would be at close to full strength and mobility.

This would drain manpower over the cause of a battle, but isn't that simulating reality? CMx1 already has the concept of reinforcements, which must affect the CPU to a certain degree, so I don't see why CMx2 couldn't have some fresh squads follow the main attack in to make up for all the combat ineffective ones.

You could even have an "Abandon Wounded" order to prune squads of their wounded and associated porters. As this would be in the orders phase, the abandoned men could legitimately just fade out of existence, representing the men being left to their own fate, which would be decided by the AAR.

[Michael Dorosh]

But Steiner, carry him where? Who would decide where he is carried, would the AI do it or the player, and what incentive would the player have for moving wounded away from the shooting? Would it have to be to an aid station? Would dragging him to cover suffice? What if you didn't drag him to cover, would you lose victory points? Will CMX2 even have "victory points" as we know them? Will we be required to set up Regimental Aid Posts on every map?

What about encirclement battles, breakouts (Velikye Luki, you SL vets?), commando raids, or last stands where historically there were no medical facilities per se available?

[Cpl Steiner]

And now for the simplest solution of all,

Wounded guys don't get carried, they just become disarmed and slow the unit down, as they are shown hobbling or staggering rather than moving more quickly. The other men in the unit have to walk so the wounded guy can keep up.

In the orders phase, rather like when you do "Split Squad" now, you can remove the wounded. A random number of healthy men are also removed when this is done, and this is out of the player's control. The removed men just disappear, which won't look as bad as it sounds as it is when the game is paused.

The advantage of removing the wounded is greater mobility. The disadvantage is that some healthy men are also removed, and you don't get to pick which ones. Undo and Redo of this command just picks the same guys every time, determined at random for that orders phase.

Any takers?

P.S. - apologies for "string" posting like this, but I kept thinking of problems with my original idea, and possible solutions.

[Cpl Steiner]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

But Steiner, carry him where? Who would decide where he is carried, would the AI do it or the player, and what incentive would the player have for moving wounded away from the shooting? Would it have to be to an aid station? Would dragging him to cover suffice? What if you didn't drag him to cover, would you lose victory points? Will CMX2 even have "victory points" as we know them? Will we be required to set up Regimental Aid Posts on every map?

What about encirclement battles, breakouts (Velikye Luki, you SL vets?), commando raids, or last stands where historically there were no medical facilities per se available?

Michael,

I am actually trying to accomodate the very concerns you voiced. In my original post I said that the wounded would stay with the unit. I subsequently posted again to say the player should have the option to remove the wounded in the orders phase, but would pay a penalty by losing some healthy men as well.

[c3k]

Gents,

Any idea utilizing movement of WIA opens a host of problems.

Who decides to move them? Where are they moved towards, if, indeed, it's been decided to move them? How are they moved? How many men will assist per wounded: 1, 2, 3, 4? What if the wounded man volunteers to man the position to allow his comrades to escape, then, gasping his last breath, pulls the pin on the grenade as the enemy rushes his position? Will there be differing WIA treatment depending on the exact nature of the wound?

For these, and all the other ideas I haven't thought of, it seems that BF.C's desire not to allow WIA to move would seem the most rational approach. For now.

Ken

[Battlefront.com]

Cpl Steiner,

Your posts illustrate exactly why we aren't going to simulate the wounded in any direct manner. Once we show them on the map, as something that isn't abstracted, we just added about 1-2 months of work to the game development schedule. The reason is there is a cascading effect that keeps on taking and giving very little back.

So, let me be VERY clear about this... there will be NO simulation of serious WIA beyond some sort of icon where they fall out from the unit. Whether this icon is a red cross, a soldier lying in a slightly different way than KIA, or a dancing ballerina in a camo tutu... the game effect will be exactly the same. Period. No more discussion. DONE!

Does anybody get the sense that there is any ambiguity in this post? If so, I'll see what I can do about getting you ride in von Shard's van

Steve

[JonS]

I feel a bit like tom_w, for doing this but never mind ...

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

... what incentive would the player have for moving wounded away from the shooting? ...

This seems like a fairly important question to me. In ops (or whatever they're called), presumably soldiers that had been carted off to 1st aid would have a better chance of returning than those left out in the sun. And also presumably in single battles soldiers carted off would count for less VPs (or whatever) than those killed outright or left out for the buzzards. But it'd be a fine balancing act. In realtime there is an inherent motivation to do such things, because at an individual level soldiers care less about The Mission than they do about their mates. But in a game that is nominally all about The Mission, the player really has no motivation to look mafter soldiers who can no longer contribute towards it. Weighting VPs too heavily towards 'care for the wounded' could easily have some pretty weird and distorting effects.

Regards

JonS

[Philippe]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

... or a dancing ballerina in a camo tutu...

Could you be a bit more specific about that ? What else will she be wearing ? My sister was a ballerina, and let me tell you, a tutu wouldn't cover a whole hell of a lot, even if you happen to have an anorexic dancer's body.

This WIA thing is getting more interesting all the time...

[Battlefront.com]

What else will she be wearing ?

Who said anything about the ballerina being a woman? I was thinking burly guy with tatoos and ungodly amoung of body hair. After all, we don't want people's attention to be focused on WIAs. Having a nice looking ballerina prancing about might work against that concept Of course, some of you might like the burly guy, even with a 20 year developed beer gut. Just like you can't please all the people all the time, you can't turn off all the people all the time

Steve

[Philippe]

You're going to do the Ballet Troc ? This is getting too surreal...

[Gpig]

". . . a soldier lying in a slightly different way than KIA . . ."

Get's MY vote.

*looks for ballot box*

[aka_tom_w]

". . . a soldier lying in a slightly different way than KIA . . ."

Get's MY vote. Me too.

BUT just remember folks.... "You CAN'T MOVE 'EM!!!!"

(oh well)

-tom w

Originally posted by Gpig:

". . . a soldier lying in a slightly different way than KIA . . ."

Get's MY vote.

*looks for ballot box*

[c3k]

In order of preference:

Soldier in different pose

Hairy Ballerina

Soulless Icon

Thanks,

Ken

[Pvt. Ryan]

Originally posted by Gpig:

". . . a soldier lying in a slightly different way than KIA . . ."

Get's MY vote.

*looks for ballot box*

That's all I'm asking for. Well, I'd still like a pony.

[hoolaman]

I want him to crawl a couple of meters and then writhe in agony every so often so you know he is a WIA not a KIA.

But seriously after a certain time is elapsed, WIA should not be where they fell. Someone would come and get them or they would crawl, limp or hop back to base. So even though I think this all should be handled , I think it would be more realistic to replace them with an icon, or have them disappear disappear a turn or two after the initial "cool animation" .

On the other hand, a non-terminally wounded man could make a useful prisoner, could be patched up to fight another day, or be killed later by arty etc. So maybe a wounded man should stay "in-play" without adding the ambulance units.

I guess if individuals can break and run, there will neccesarily be code for stragglers that are out of player control. Perhaps wounded should be treated like a routed soldier.

[ September 14, 2005, 06:59 PM: Message edited by: Hoolaman ]

[Ardem]

I still go with my original thoughts, that they fall, crawl and disappear in the movie stage.

That way the screen does not become a cluttered pile of moving bodies or red cross icons.

[ September 14, 2005, 06:54 PM: Message edited by: Ardem ]

[stoat]

My thoughts were not to bother with wounded at all, but instead just show individual deceased soldiers.

[hoolaman]

Yes thats what I said too on page one of this thread, however, if an incapacitated soldier is treated in a similar way as a routed soldier, I think you could kill two birds with one stone.

You can capture and kill routed soldiers, and I think there is similar value in being able to capture a wounded soldier.

[Brent Pollock]

Nobody has to say anything about a ballerina being a woman...because they are all women by definition. If you wanted to specify the hairy guy, you should have typed "ballerino" rather than "ballerina".

Go ahead, call me a ballet grog

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />What else will she be wearing ?

Who said anything about the ballerina being a woman? I was thinking burly guy with tatoos and ungodly amoung of body hair...[snip]</font>

[aka_tom_w]

Brent is of course correct!

here is the male ballerino in action!

(yeah yeah, I know, it was the only quick and cheap flashy animated .gif I could find)

BUT yeah it is indeed a ballerino!

-tom w

[aka_tom_w]

Yup

that probably needs its own thread

it is one heckuva good question!

"Why not???"

Somehow I am guessing the answer is:

Wait for it!

.

,

,

,

,

"Because Steve Said so!"

-tom w

Originally posted by Hoolaman:

Yes thats what I said too on page one of this thread, however, if an incapacitated soldier is treated in a similar way as a routed soldier, I think you could kill two birds with one stone.

You can capture and kill routed soldiers, and I think there is similar value in being able to capture a wounded soldier.

[ September 14, 2005, 08:48 PM: Message edited by: aka_tom_w ]

[Battlefront.com]

You can capture and kill routed soldiers, and I think there is similar value in being able to capture a wounded soldier.

But routed soldiers are by definition not thinking straight and self reliant. Wounded are neither. They are instead immobilized and require either someone to stay with them or someone to come for them. So if you simulate the realism of kill/capturing wounded, you need to simulate the realism of doing something to avoid having them killed/captured. And that introduces a ton of necessary features that we simply don't have any time or desire to simulate at this point.

Many things in CMx1 were abstracted and yet they worked. They worked because we kept the abstraction balanced with other forces that in the real world interact with it. Same here. We must keep WIA abstracted.

Steve

[hoolaman]

Fair enough. I would be more than happy with abstracted WIA. I was just thinking that the two situations are similar, at least in the initial stages.

When you get to the point where the stretcher bearers should be arriving, I suppose it is no longer realistic.

The points made in the "slippery slope of abstraction vs realism" thread from a few months ago were well taken (by me at least).

[ September 14, 2005, 09:03 PM: Message edited by: Hoolaman ]

[aka_tom_w]

OK

So far none of us know how this is going to play out in the game when we actually get to play it.

BUT

I would like to suggest the seriously wounded (WIA that are immobile) should be treated by the player JUST like the KIA they are done and out of the fight.

SO

That means (if I understand this correctly) if you have a squad or a platoon that is taking "lightly wounded" casualties or maybe 1-2 severely wounded and immobile WIA casualties, the player will want to do something about this ASAP ( "IF" big if here) the player knows that (thru the game GUI) as he is taking casualties and will want to try to improve the situation or move the "lightly wounded", while he still can, members of the squad with the WHOLE squad or with a team to the rear or out of the action.

BUT the seriously wounded will need to be immediatly determined to be largely, or likely to be KIA by the player as there is NO way to move them or help them in any way, so they must now abandon them as nothing can be done (by the palyer) for them in the game. (is that correct?)

Such is life! (oh well!)

Such is the reality of the "seriously WIA can't be moved" decision which almost certainly commits them to KIA status since there is apparently nothing the player can do to help them.

Is this correct?

-tom w

[ September 14, 2005, 09:09 PM: Message edited by: aka_tom_w ]