The Wrong Left Turn and the Uncanny Valley

[KNac]

Originally posted by junk2drive:

On the 1:1 subject, tanks in CMx1 are 1:1 correct?

Franko's Tank Warning as Soviets has you managing a large herd of tanks vs the Germans with not as large a herd.

If the 3D units had legs instead of tracks it would be like commanding a company or so of 1:1 troops versus some other troops with different weapons and skills.

1:1 can work if my analogy above is correct. I did not micromanage my tanks and troops in that scenario PBEM. Of course I lost, but it was fun and an awesome sight to see all the tanks firing at each other and some exploding.

Yes, and you control each single unit. In a squad you can't cotnrol each single soldier, and anyway it's not practical to do so.

I think one of the questions Dorosh and JasonC have raised is how good is 1:1 representation if these infantry guys can't interact in a realistic fashion with their virtual world.

It's all a matter of doing a good AI or not. With a good enough AI, 1:1 representation is better than abstraction, in any sense (be either eye candy/coolness, playability or realism). But if not, abstraction is to be prefered.

So the big question is: can BFC do it right?!

[Sitting Duck]

Originally posted by AdamL:

Couldn't at least some of the present problems be fixed by restoring terrain cover/exposure rules?

If you follow the logic used by Michael, then I believe the answer to your question would probably be "no."

I'll try to paraphrase to illustrate why...

To start with, CMx1 and CMx2 have fundamentally different unit modeling. I believe Michael's point is that this change in CMx2 modeling creates a mismatch of scale that negatively affects various aspects of game play.

Changing terrain cover/exposure rules don't really address the fundamental nature of the issue that Michael has raised.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by KNac:

So the question is: can a good enough AI be programmed to behave in a way that can make 1:1 feasible instead of following the abstraction aproach?

IMO, even if AI is the most difficult programming, it can be done (yes, not perfect, but good enough to make the game fun as well as realist). It may take a lot longer than is thought, specially with the current BFC roster.

Even so, is 1:1 desirable? What set CM:BB et al apart was the fact that it had such great fidelity for the level of portrayal that was selected. I think what my anonymous correspondent in the first post was trying to say was that it seemed silly, to him, for BF.C to abandon a unique niche in the marketplace just to do what everyone else is doing, and not be able to do it as well.

You look at Operation Flashpoint, which is multi-player, and has a ton of money flowing into it, and it may be unfair to compare them. But you do. Automatically. Based on the graphics and the fact they are both 1:1 games.

The turnbased WEGO system seemed to go hand in hand with the level of abstraction that so nicely recalled the older board games but more importantly - THIS IS HOW EVERY SINGLE COMPANY-LEVEL GAME EVER DESIGNED HAS OPERATED. You abstract the squads.

So yeah, when Battlefront says they are breaking new ground, well, sure they are. They're the first to attempt to make a company-level game with 1:1 representation. Think of all the stuff that might reasonably be expected to impact a 1:1 modelling, that we don't see yet. No one can say for sure what NEEDS to be in. Did buddy aid HAVE to be included? There were huge debates about how to include wounded soldiers. The solution they found is okay. Haven't seen prisoners or hand-to-hand fighting yet.

Example

How about grenades? I was playing my own Meeting at High Altitude scen, and noticed when I gave an area fire order against a tall wall 10 metres away that my dudes would chuck grenades with wild abandon AT the wall - but not OVER the wall.

But I can't order them to do so, even if I know there are enemy soldiers there. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to chuck grenades OVER A WALL TEN METRES AWAY? I would do it in real life.

What about grenades through a house's window, before clearing the building. Isn't that standard for house-clearing? Can we do it in CM:SF?

Shouldn't we be able to, with 1:1 rep?

[rlg85]

Wow, I step away from the forums for a bit and come back to find a post from Michael Dorosh of all people that fits my beliefs about this game almost to the letter.

So what has changed from your defense of CMSF? This post leaves me wondering why I ended up in an argument with you over the fact that I thought they had made a wrong turn with this game, when apparently you had very similar thoughts, just you were able to state them much more eloquently. (Admittedly I did jump to conclusions about long term design decisions, which is mostly what you went after me for. But.. your post here seems to support that they might have a longer term design shift in a direction away from a CMBO type game)

As I've said before, I love BFC games and I still have hope for this one. But I fear that the series has taken a fundamental wrong turn, one that has been well explained my Mr. Dorosh here. When it comes down to it, I was looking in the wrong place all along.

It isn't RT causing the problems, but the 1:1 representation. All the weird terrain abstraction (Is the wall there or not?), single point area fire, lack of AI are all generated from that 1:1 representation and the changes needed in the terrain system in order to facilitate it)

I can now see where why BFC was offended at all the people stating that WEGO was gone, and that they had killed WEGO. Because we we're barking up the wrong tree, they didn't make a conscious decision to kill off WEGO, and included it (almost) fully into the game. But it no longer works nearly as well in this 1:1 world where terrain doesn't mean what it looks like and soldiers don't know how to use the non abstracted terrain. (except when it is abstracted, and the wall that looks like it is there.. isn't)

I also still don't quite understand how the bullets/shells are actually tracked. If they are made 1:1, then why does LOF seem (at least for area fire) to be tracked on the same 8m blocks that LOS is? Isn't that just an abstraction system that isn't as good as the original? Also the 8m thing doesnt explain why shells and bullets will travel completely through walls and buildings and fly for much further than 8m.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by rlg85:

So what has changed from your defense of CMSF?

Don't get me wrong - CM:SF still works as intended. I'm just discussing design philosophy here and don't mean to be too critical. I guess I've been having so much fun playing in the CM:BB meta campaign that I am perhaps a bit encouraged by those experiences.

CM:SF does what BF.C has set out to do with it. It's still "Combat Mission" in look and function and the stuff I championed most heavily - the editor for one - speaks for itself. There is nothing "wrong" with CM:SF but it has been suggested that by making our opinions known, we can influence the development of the series. We have in the past. Well, I think perhaps a few people are wondering if 1:1 is the right way to go. I'm not convinced either way, and the conversation here has been constructive.

CM:SF does have a lot of features that are marked improvements over the old CM - big and small, from the button-type icons replacing the bases, to 2,000 terrain levels in the editor, etc. But perhaps everyone, in all camps, would benefit from a fresh perspective and I thought the question of 1:1 might be another approach to take in discussing things.

[KNac]

Even with the 1:1 rep I suppose there is a lot of abstraction. ie. hand to hand combat, chuckin nades etc. We shouldn't assume that a graphical 1:1 representation does portray a total 1:1 physical rep. Maybe when you target area with your stryker at one building wall and allways the shooting is doen to the same spot (due to grid restrictions & mechanics), it does not mean that the 1:1 rep is corresponded with all the calculations done and damage applied to the team hiding behind the wall.

I mean, maybe the single bullets are tracked and each single squad memeber is tracked too. But maybe some other rules apply, in addition, or sometimes, overwrite them totally, depending in each case (like close quarters combat).

I don't know the inner game mechanics, so I can't say to what point is 1:1 graphical representation equal to 1:1 calcs.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by KNac:

I don't know the inner game mechanics, so I can't say to what point is 1:1 graphical representation equal to 1:1 calcs.

I don't wish to appear overly smug, but isn't that the problem? Having a game that looks like it is 1:1, but isn't? I think at some point, there is a desire to have one or the other.

OFP had ridiculous contact grenades but you did at least know what you were looking at, and could pretty much tell guys to do what you wanted them to do. It was a man-to-man game, though, and so the scale was appropriate to 1:1. I'm not convinced a company-level game is appropriate to 1:1 for the reason you suggest.

I guess we don't know til we try, eh?

But to go back to my grenade example, we already have a huge list of commands on four separate menus - we're not going to get a "throw grenades over tall wall" order. So how would you implement a perfectly sensible real-world order in 1:1 rep without resorting to either abstraction, or else very specific commands that will simply burden the player and an already over-taxed interface?

[ August 11, 2007, 03:45 PM: Message edited by: Michael Dorosh ]

[KNac]

The AI has to do it w/o you telling to do it. There is no other work around. I don't want to look obtuse about this, but is the only way.

Is really difficult, for an action that seems so simple, to be performed right at the moment that is neccessary by the TacAI. But it can be done, is just like "the squad should be shooting the AT-4 at the BMP" or "this tank should use this kind of shell for this type of target". We know it can be done, cause in CMx1 was done to a degree, only than for 1:1 virtual world, all is more complex, and it will take more time until all feels right

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by KNac:

The AI has to do it w/o you telling to do it. There is no other work around. I don't want to look obtuse about this, but is the only way.

Is really difficult, for an action that seems so simple, to be performed right at the moment that is neccessary by the TacAI. But it can be done, is just like "the squad should be shooting the AT-4 at the BMP" or "this tank should use this kind of shell for this type of target". We know it can be done, cause in CMx1 was done to a degree, only than for 1:1 virtual world, all is more complex, and it will take more time until all feels right

Exactly right on all counts. Like Steve said back in 2000 - that's a LOT of very specific programming (and animations) to be done.

[rlg85]

CM:SF does what BF.C has set out to do with it. It's still "Combat Mission" in look and function and the stuff I championed most heavily - the editor for one - speaks for itself. There is nothing "wrong" with CM:SF but it has been suggested that by making our opinions known, we can influence the development of the series. We have in the past. Well, I think perhaps a few people are wondering if 1:1 is the right way to go. I'm not convinced either way, and the conversation here has been constructive.

CM:SF does have a lot of features that are marked improvements over the old CM - big and small, from the button-type icons replacing the bases, to 2,000 terrain levels in the editor, etc. But perhaps everyone, in all camps, would benefit from a fresh perspective and I thought the question of 1:1 might be another approach to take in discussing things.

Oh definitely, there are many things in this game that are absolutely superb. Ive been playing around with the editor and I love it.

In your thread back before release I posted that one of the things I was looking forward to was indeed 1:1 representation. But that was because I was more interested in the novelty of it, and I had just assumed that the gameplay would be there.

I also think that a 1:1 credible graphical representation , while maintaining an under the hood non 1:1 abstraction would work better than the current CM:SF system that leaves people confused as to what it actually is.

In other words, you would see all 10 men in the squad, who would act realistically to the best ablity of the programming, but with the understanding things are still abstracted, we've just upgraded from 3 static guys to 10 semi-realistic acting ones, but what happens under the hood (which is what gives CMx1 the degree of precision it has) would be the same.

Seems like that would have been a hell of a lot easier to program, instead of having to worry about how much bullet drop and windage Sgt. Jim Bob will have to adjust for on his individual shot. I don't think that should matter in anything on a scale above an FPS anyway. (Like OFP)

But I wouldn't expect them to reverse 4 years of work on having the graphics AND the engine at a 1:1 level

One other thing, and this isnt a criticism, but an honest question that I haven't really seen completely answered. With the things that seemingly are abstracted (walls,terrain elevations, area fire etc.) What actually is calculated 1:1 under the hood? In some pre-release discussion of the hot zones (or whatever the exact name for them is), it seemed as if LOS would be based on these 8m zones, but the LOF would be actively tracked on a 1:1 basis with the visual terrain mesh. That doesn't seem to be what we have,so does that mean there is some sort of hybrid?

[Alpha Mike]

Too many words.... Head Exploding....

Battlefront, please note: CM:SF pleases *me*

[Yardstick]

Originally posted by Alpha Mike:

Too many words.... Head Exploding....

Battlefront, please note: CM:SF pleases *me*

Word. I'm in love with this game. I love the scale. I love the pause-able real time. I love the editor. I love the level of realism. When I watch a SQD dismount I honestly feel attached to them. I really hope BFC does not give in to some of the whiners.

[acrashb]

Originally posted by Angryson:

I love the level of realism.

Like a squad partly-milling about in the street when they should be stacked at a corner?

Like a MG firing at the grid corner of a house instead of walking fire across the face?

Like shooting through walls?

Like a clump of T-72's just sitting around waiting to be plinked by M1's?

Read MD's original post - it is so well constructed one could call it erudite.

[rlg85]

Originally posted by Alpha Mike:

Too many words.... Head Exploding....

Battlefront, please note: CM:SF pleases *me*

Ok asking this nicely...

If you had bothered to read the posts preceding yours, you would see that your post contributes nothing other than spam.

So would people stop making drive by posts in every random thread with "This game sucks" or "This game rocks" generalizations?

MD's great post and some of the resulting discussion however, provides real feedback for BFC to consider (whether they do anything with it is up to them, as CM is their baby and they can do what they will)

If you had bothered to read (instead of complaining about words) you would have seen there was a legitimate discussion about the merits of 1:1 in this scale.

Fanbois posting how great and completely flawless the game is over and over followed by people set on hating the game posting how bad it is over and over pretty much accomplishes nothing other than adding posts to the board.

[hoolaman]

I disagree with MD's essay on the design of the game.

So you own a lot of boardgames? I know there is a rich history of military boardgaming, but to be honest I don't think a game of CMSF's complexity is really comparable to those dice and counters.

It's like a comparing a pencil and paper to an electronic calculator. Sure you can eventually do all the same things with one that you can with the other, but to say that you should only do simple things with the calculator because that was you used to do with the pencil is not right.

There is nothing inherently wrong with trying to simulate 1:1 everything, and a lot of the stuff MD complains about are actually quite trivial bugs, not problems with the concept itself, although they are there and do hinder the enjoyment of the 1:1 concept.

I tend to agree with kipanderson on this one. I think there are a few shortcomings in the game as it stands.

TACAI. the TacAI is not working as it should. I know this will be tweaked and tweaked over time, so maybe in a year's time the TacAI will be great. With this fixed, when soldiers behave like they "should", suddenly 1:1 is not so bad.

LOS/LOF issues. The issues put forward in the OP are not a function of the 1:1 design. If your area fire hosed down the building or area instead of firing at a point there would be not be a problem. If your grenades were programmed so they went in the window or over the wall there would be no problem. All of this is a problem with the TacAI or the implementation of certain features.

Missing SOPs and UI. One complaint that is valid, and would negate a lot of the tacAI issues is the lack of certain controls and UI functions. If you want to area fire a building or area, why not drag out a circle like the arty routine? Why not have the ability to select a point or or a structure to pour fire on. Why not have SOPs for your waypoints and globally to guide the TacAI as to what stance is most appropriate. Why not have the circles to show where your guys will end up or even represent the path the TacAI is going to send them on so you can correct it before they run out in front of a MG. What about the convoy command?

There are many more commands and interface refinements that would make the game easier to play and produce much more realistic and believable outcomes, and in addition if something dumb happened you would only have yourself to blame!

Terrain Fidelity. To my mind this is the worst design issue as far as the abstraction/CMBB-is-better argument. Not only was the infantry highly abstracted in CM1 but the terrain also was highly abstracted. In CMSF I don't see that this terrain abstraction has changed. There is still not a perfect match between the ground itself and what a bullet does when it hits. The buildings are still angled at 90 or 45 degrees. The buildings are abstracted although less so. The roads must be angles just like CM1. The terrain is not high fidelity, and not exactly WYSIWYG.

CM1 dealt with this by making sure the player knew what each piece of terrain gave you via cover % and LOS degradation, along with tiles of a certain terrain type. But CMSF makes you guess, and all those undulations and rocks and logs and ridges you imagined in CM1 are not represented in nearly enough detail compared to the high fidelity troop models.

Part of this terrain issue is again LOS/LOF problems which could be fixed, but part of it is inherent to the new game engine.

CONCLUSION

The 1:1 representation is good, although it will take some work to behave as people expect it to. Just because there has never been a 1:1 boardgame is irrelevant, and besides, squads and teams are still the smallest control elements in the game.

The level of abstraction is not quite as homogenous as in CM1, but I believe that is mainly due to terrain, not the 1:1 concept.

Other bugs and ommisions such as UI, LOS, WEGO problems may make abstraction issues seem worse, but are not relevant to whether the consept is sound at its core.

[JasonC]

X is the future arguments simply beg the question. If an approach does not work, it will not succeed in capturing large future markets. People's desire for it to work is not sufficient to make it a workable idea, any more than "It" was a workable idea, or "Fire in the East", or "Campaign for North Africa".

Monster games were a rage for a while, but worked only for grand tactics in the gunpowder era. Design for effect and playable simplicity beat them everywhere else. Computers also beat them because they had much greater playability. (Computer wargames did not and still do not have greater realism, not for the operational and strategic level the monster games went after. But they did not need it to win).

Nor is it a huge leap in realism to accurately model bullet flight at zombies wandering around in the open begging to be shot. To the extent that path finding and AI limits force units at the level they are tracked by the machine to wander around without close adaptation to incoming fire, a combat system that abstracts the unsimulated ability to adaptively take cover will be superior in realism to one that does not.

Otherwise you might as well argue that a game it most realistic if every AP round fires destroys everything it touches - since stealth and close adaptation of cover is as essential to the tactical role of infantry, as round-defeating advanced composite armors are to defensive power of main battle tanks.

Yes, tanks in CMx1 were one to one. And CMx1 worked best on the company level, becoming "monster" and MM intensive at the battalion level. And I mean infantry battalions - attempts to simulate entire battalions of armor in CMx1 were a farce and a failure. Perhaps amusing as a movie scripted by someone else, to watch once, but not as a strategy game.

The point is that there is a limit to the command span a game can take. Sniper worked with 1 to 1 depiction of infantry combat, but only to a squad of men. With a computer added, you might push it to a platoon, though borg aspects would start getting problematic even at that level. None of the really interesting combined arms questions have arisen yet, however, and the single platoon level. 10 items is easy even if the orders to each are detailed. 50-100 items are work and require turns and bring in the borg. 500-1000 items are unplayable monster territory.

Ergo, it will never be realistic or playable to represent battalion level combat at the individual man level with discrete player control. It simply isn't realistic for one mind to direct 500 or 1000 minds. It is too much work to be fun and unrealistic coordination results. To restore realistic limits on coordination, you wind up taking back out of the player's hands, what you claim to be simulating.

One level of that can work. It is an old board wargame idea - step losses, in effect. The computer can track them and thus reduce MM and paperwork. But how accurately it does this bottom level, is a severe stress point for the sim as a whole. The game can be broken by one undesigned imbalance between subsystem A and subsystem B, if both are out of direct player control, but fully modeled and essential to fight outcomes.

The strength of "design for effect" is that the designer knows exactly what parameters will result at the point where subsystems A and B meet. He is getting the interaction correct, not the subsystems. Focusing instead on the subsystems means working far harder to possibly get the same good result, and possible break everything by failing to forsee the way engineer-model A meets engineer-model B. Since the motive behind the design of each is now independent (in the engineering-realism rather than design-for-effect approach), that is always possible and even likely.

The belief that abstraction is something horrible to get rid of and replace with realism, is a delusion. All games are abstractions, all sims are abstractions, all models are abstractions. You either aim at the critical parts to get interactions correct, or you fail to aim, build each part in isolation, and just hope they all fit when thrown into the same pot. Well, they won't. Not if you don't rigorously design for it beforehand, test outcomes, and rejigger everything to get it right again at the abstraction level.

All of which is unnecessary work, if you know the realistic outcome to begin with - or even where it lies in parameter space, roughly, and what its major drivers are. Put those drivers and only those drivers in the hands of the players, and let them do the rest.

Instead, an engineer-approach game puts critical systems in view of the players but not under their control, and puts lots of minutae under their control that only indirectly impacts the main issues the players are competing over or that the game is simulating. This multiplies not realism, but micromanagement. And player frustration, not game play depth.

[rlg85]

Originally posted by Hoolaman:

The level of abstraction is not quite as homogenous as in CM1, but I believe that is mainly due to terrain, not the 1:1 concept.

Other bugs and ommisions such as UI, LOS, WEGO problems may make abstraction issues seem worse, but are not relevant to whether the consept is sound at its core.

I don't really think 1:1 is incompatible with the scale as a whole, as MD seems to think it might. But I do think that the 1:1 together with the proper attention to detail as CMx1 had isn't feasible with today's computing technology, unless they can get a lot more out of the current AI without adding CPU strain.

So I think 1:1 is the cause of the problems, the main disagreement I guess is whether it fits with the genre at all. I think it could, with enough advance in computer ability , and a hell of a lot more AI and LOF calculation programming.

As I said, I wish they had made an intermediate step by showing 1:1 graphically and keeping the abstract calculations. But they decided to attempt a full leap to 1:1 and ran into the great wall of CPU speed and having to program a fully intelligent 1:1 aware AI.

[ August 11, 2007, 05:17 PM: Message edited by: rlg85 ]

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Hoolaman:

I disagree with MD's essay on the design of the game.

It's funny that you say you disagree with me, and then prove my point with everything else you say.

So you own a lot of boardgames? I know there is a rich history of military boardgaming, but to be honest I don't think a game of CMSF's complexity is really comparable to those dice and counters.

There's no difference between a computer game and a board game at the design level - in the end, they are numbers and tables. Imagination fills in the blanks.

There is nothing inherently wrong with trying to simulate 1:1 everything, and a lot of the stuff MD complains about are actually quite trivial bugs, not problems with the concept itself, although they are there and do hinder the enjoyment of the 1:1 concept.

Let's back up a second. I'm not "complaining" about anything. I'm presenting the idea that 1:1 modelling is a faulty groundwork on which to lay a company-sized tactical game on. We do that by investigating how CM handles specific design issues. Which is the same thing you're about to do.

I tend to agree with kipanderson on this one. I think there are a few shortcomings in the game as it stands.

And these are all related to the underlying 1:1 question.

TACAI. the TacAI is not working as it should. I know this will be tweaked and tweaked over time, so maybe in a year's time the TacAI will be great. With this fixed, when soldiers behave like they "should", suddenly 1:1 is not so bad.

Wait a minute - I thought you said 1:1 was irrelevant. Now you're saying it isn't working. Which is it?

LOS/LOF issues. The issues put forward in the OP are not a function of the 1:1 design. If your area fire hosed down the building or area instead of firing at a point there would be not be a problem. If your grenades were programmed so they went in the window or over the wall there would be no problem. All of this is a problem with the TacAI or the implementation of certain features.

In CM:BB, there ARE no windows. Again, at a 1:1 rep, there are. So yes, this is very much related to 1:1 representation.

Missing SOPs and UI.

We agree on all this so I won't quote it.

There are many more commands and interface refinements that would make the game easier to play and produce much more realistic and believable outcomes, and in addition if something dumb happened you would only have yourself to blame!

NO. No more commands! The Tac AI is supposed to be doing this stuff. In 1:1 that means we have to see it. At a more abstract level or reprsentation, we can comfortably ignore it, or "factor it in." You see the problems we create when we go to 1:1?

Terrain Fidelity. To my mind this is the worst design issue as far as the abstraction/CMBB-is-better argument. Not only was the infantry highly abstracted in CM1 but the terrain also was highly abstracted. In CMSF I don't see that this terrain abstraction has changed. There is still not a perfect match between the ground itself and what a bullet does when it hits. The buildings are still angled at 90 or 45 degrees. The buildings are abstracted although less so. The roads must be angles just like CM1. The terrain is not high fidelity, and not exactly WYSIWYG.

CM1 dealt with this by making sure the player knew what each piece of terrain gave you via cover % and LOS degradation, along with tiles of a certain terrain type. But CMSF makes you guess, and all those undulations and rocks and logs and ridges you imagined in CM1 are not represented in nearly enough detail compared to the high fidelity troop models.

Part of this terrain issue is again LOS/LOF problems which could be fixed, but part of it is inherent to the new game engine.

Or just leave it as it was and there is nothing to fix....

CONCLUSION

The 1:1 representation is good,

Despite you citing half a dozen reasons why it is

not and not a single reason in favour!

I'm willing to believe 1:1 is the way to go, but no one has championed convincingly why this would be so for a company level game.

[rlg85]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

I'm willing to believe 1:1 is the way to go, but no one has championed convincingly why this would be so for a company level game.

When computer technology and AI are at a level to be able to do it properly , why not?

Sure it is pretty much a "looks cool" feature, but not everyone can stand playing a game where the graphics are NATO symbols, or a workaround for 3D in the case of CMx1.

Wouldn't you prefer 1:1 assuming terrain fidelity and AI issues could somehow be solved?

I know why not isn't exactly the greatest reason ever, but when it comes to marketing video games, a "why not" addition sometimes seems to be a great selling point. This all assuming it can be properly implemented with enough programing work and computers that can handle it.

[ August 11, 2007, 05:31 PM: Message edited by: rlg85 ]

[JasonC]

I partially agree with Knac and Hoolman (pardon me if I got the handles wrong slightly), despite generally arguing the other side. They are right that how much the tac AI can do is critical. I also take the point that CMSF is still using squads or teams as the command level, and is not making the mistake of trying to let the players command every single man.

I also agree with the point about terrain detail and its importance (interacting with the previous). I do think Adam's suggestion might help, though I don't know enough of the details about how they are doing things now, to say for sure. It obviously also interacts with LOF issues. At least one core difficulty right now is the tac AI not having an accurate sense of LOFs, real or potential.

At the risk of recommending something hopeless in implementation terms, I point out that many AIs use "influence maps" for things besides pathfinding.

The idea is you create a field of real numbers at each point in a grid, representing some threat or protection quantity, given what that unit knows or what is known overall etc. Whereas path finders have to build routes sequentially, these influence maps can generally be done simply in one go by a function.

Example - I'm infantry. So I take every spotted enemy on the map and I estimate his visible areas, weighted perhaps for range or some estimate of soft firepower. Every spot now has an enemy fire value, and I should take it into account in pathfinding. I look for minima of it, near me (especially if my morale state is poor etc).

I can do the same with my own visibility. Suppose I have a hide order. Then I want small LOS footprint. Suppose instead I am in good order and ready to fire. Then I perhaps want LOS to a known enemy, and if there are none, wide LOS or LOS that creates a "threat map" that overlaps with a "close to known enemies" map.

I'm armor - as above but I only care about certain enemy unit types as threats.

Any or all of these might improve the strategic AI, but I am more concered with their use by the tac AI for cover seeking, etc.

[JasonC]

rlg85 - speaking purely personally, I would not prefer it even if every problem with it can be solved. I'd put up with it and not care either way, if it introduces no problems whatever. But to me it seems a ton of work to add a feature or aspect to the game that I fundamentally don't give a tinker's cuss about.

I mean, I'd rather have a good brigade to division level game where the units are companies but tactical combined arms issues still arise, set in WW II. But I play combat mission because it does 2-3 levels below that better than anybody else does any level in between.

I could care less about where the bottom is. Would you prefer a game that simulated atoms in each private's arm?

[Blackhorse]

Nice topic.

As someone else stated, command span and the potential for command span overload are definite pitfalls that challenge any wargame designer.

The Army believes a Command Span of 2-5 units is optimal.

This creates problems for designers. Unless the game is truly multi-player, then this span of control issue becomes problematic and has the potential to overload players. Adding RT into the mix further complicates the design process.

A game system that seems to have somewhat effectively addressed this issue is the Airborne Assault series. There, players can in fact give orders to just a few units, and those units will in turn transmit orders to their subordinates.

The game system is apples to oranges compared to CMSF however, so a comparison is not enntirely fair.

However, if CMSF were able to do something like that, would it change the nature of the issues people are having with it?

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by rlg85:

Wouldn't you prefer 1:1 assuming terrain fidelity and AI issues could somehow be solved?

Ok - I agree with you. Yes.

The reason I bring this whole point up is to re-examine some of the criticisms outside the plane of "CM:SF sucks" "No it doesn't". We've mostly done that, for which I'm glad. As stated, I don't mean to by perceived as critical, but I think it is useful to look constructively at how we perceive the game beyond just telling each other we "don't get it."

So I agree with Hoolaman - most of you, I guess - that IF 1:1 modelling could be done with a Tac AI appropriate to the level being modelled, it would be great.

I'm just not sure that is BF.C's bread and butter - it hasn't been in the past - and the perception at present is that attempting to do so has simply dropped the CM line into mediocrity.

Now, IF they pull this off - and I'm not convinced one way or another it can be done - it will be cutting edge once more. I don't believe just making the attempt entitles anyone to assume that mantle, no matter how valiant the attempt is, if the attempt is perceived to have failed.

But then again, if the Tac AI is making SO many decisions that it is playing itself - you get to the point that there really is no point. I guess I'd have to know just how many decisions are really in the tree at 1:1. The tree in CMX1 was pretty good. In CMX2 we now have four command panels, and we don't even have stuff like surrendering units and guarding prisoners and hand-to-hand combat and captured weapons/vehicles, or climbing or swimming or scaling chain link fences, driving over foxholes, digging foxholes in the first place... This is all stuff that "deserves" treatment in a game. Does it not? If not, then where do you draw the "abstraction line" once the barn door is open?

[Sergei]

Originally posted by JasonC:

Would you prefer a game that simulated atoms in each private's arm?

How else can you accurately model effets of a bullet? :confused:

[average]

1 to 1 can work.

What holds it back is that at the moment the AI don't have SOP's, and drills. This is an individual and section problem.

Second, the orders are limited. Sector fire, area fire and the like need to be included.

As an adjunct to this, if you could specify a stance for your sections to take, that determines what their response is on contact and what their tatical stance is before and during contact. That is the biggest problem at the moment, they get a contact, they don't react, and often they are poorly set for contact.

This means the AI needs to at least be able to recognise fire lanes and react to combat indicators short of taking fire or visual contact.

As much as I am going to be howled down, you should probably get a little bit less control over what each individual section is doing. In my experience,diggers won't just stroll down the street casually if they are expecting contact. Once they bump contact, they will execute the appropriate drill and the seco is going to try and get them into cover or out of the kill zone.

Abstraction is a work around. If you could sort out the AI (and Close Combat was pretty good in this regard), then it wouldn't need to be abstracted to three man squads.

Finally, i've never had any interest in trying to fight a Bn using individual sections. It just doesn't appeal to me. Company command is about as much as you can do in real time without very heavy abstraction.