Battle Scope

[Ardem]

Well since I started this very heated and interesting post and poor Mr Dorsh has taken a lot of the brunt.

I would like to remind people that the fact we play CM differently and enjoy its aspects it a great credit to the game itself.

Battlefront has put my fears to rest, saying they won't artifically limit the number of units, as far as not having a battalion commander on the battlefield I am not to concerned i am sure I be able to rename a company commander in the scenario editor and say he is the battation commander, if for any reason I want a scenario of taking out the command staff.

[Zalgiris 1410]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

I'm going to guess that multi-battalion sized games are not going to be possible for a whlie due to hardware issues. If you went back 7 years ago and tried doing that with CMBO you'd have found it impractical (read "impossible") even on the fastest system.

The 6:1 ratio thing is a joke Nobody plays like that. In fact, I think most people probably play games closer to 2:1 or even 1.5:1. 3:1 was a rule of thumb for Western forces to be "assured" victory. 5 or 6:1 for Soviets, along with CRUDLOADS of artillery. Since nobody plays things that way on a regular basis in any great numbers, why is this relevant to the discussion? Oh wait... I just answered my own question... it isn't

Steve

BFC this is bloody horrible news and very depreessing.

BTW, BFC I think that you are confused about the nature of my CMx1 addiction to playing with Btlns. For CMx2 I'm gonna be hanging out for my need for them, because I don't just play with just one or two Btlns against a reinforced Company or such but with multi-Btln (even Rgmts) combined arms forces fighting against a similarly sized opponent. :eek:

That's what I'm going to be missing out on by the sounds of it.

What am I going to have to do to get my fix then? :confused:

[Battlefront.com]

That's what I'm going to be missing out on by the sounds of it.

As far as we can tell, yes. But again... CMx1 was never, ever designed to play games larger than a battalion.

What am I going to have to do to get my fix then?

The same thing you would have had to do when CMBO first came out... wait until the hardware gets better.

CMx1 is centered around Company level play, so is CMx2. Sorry, that's just the way things are, always have been, and will likely to be for some time to come. We're sorry that nobody else is out there doing RGT sized games like CM (or any sized games like CM for that matter!), but we can only make one game at a time. Losing focus would mean a bad product for everybody.

Steve

[The_Capt]

Steve,

I guess I will wade in here...been awhile I know but warfare at the Coy/Bn level can only carry one so far.

Have you guys looked at larger scale engagements that layer a higher level of warfare over top the tactical game you have been focusing on.

If you remember Close Combat: Market Garden, they tried to do this by linking a higher level Operational Campaign with the tactical fights. Have you looked at such an item.

The Meta Campaigns out there give a good idea of what I am talking about, re placing these tactical battles in a larger context.

Now if you can place the larger context to encompass co-operative multi-play I think you can take this game to a whole new level.

Many if us have done this thru ad hoc processes but an integrated solution has yet to see the light of day.

In short I am less concerned (as I once was) on the performance of MGs and more interested in how CM can be more than a solitare or 1 on 1 affair.

[Zalgiris 1410]

Dear Steve, sorry to have been harping on about the oversized unit layout for multi-Btln/Rgmts thing so much. But if you polled me again it would still now be my number 1 aspect of CMx1 to keep in for CMx2. That said , I guess I just had to take the opportunity to express my opinion in this thread. (I feel like I've been polled where it hurts the most and no BFC is gonna kiss it better...cos he said he wouldn't.)

I should explain why I perfer playing the larger scale over the smaller Company sized way. I like to play thinking in terms of line and manoeuvre elements not just of units. At company level have squads of a platoon or two shot up or bombed to hell is catestophic or my few HMGs, guns, mortars or teams of whatever is detrimentally crippling, not to mention how fatal it can be losing half or more of a lone tank platoon. I rather being able to use companys of infanty especially if one or two of them become ineffective, platoons of guns, a number of HMG and mortar sections and quite a large number of tanks to represent companys or even up to a whole battalion.

I find it more interesting this way, while to me it feels too arcade like just handling a reinforced company or two. The units become for me a bit too suseptible to elements of chance, rather than to handling and in depth planning. May be its just me? Also most of what I've read about WWII fighting is above the scale of company and down focus material so my focus is on the greater tactical scope.

From what BFC is indicating IMO it seems like CMx2 is being designed to be more like a better version of Close Combat than how I think of CMx1. (Not that I didn't like Close Combat but I prefer CMx1 because of the larger scope.)

[Vanir Ausf B]

Originally posted by Zalgiris 1410:

The units become for me a bit too suseptible to elements of chance, rather than to handling and in depth planning. May be its just me?

The outcome of larger games is less influenced by chance. That's simple math and isn't debatable. Whether there is too much chance in small games is subjective. Some feel it's more exciting that the outcome can hinge on a single pivitol event. Others don't like being bound to the fickle finger of fate.

My own reasons for liking bigger games is because it allows for greater flexibility in planning and force composition. My only concern was that the game would allow for battalion+ in a way similar to CMx1. It seems that will be the case and our ability to play large games will only be hindered by the steep hardware requirements to do so. But this is something I can live with because that will become less of a factor over the years as people upgrade.

[Battlefront.com]

Zalgiris

From what BFC is indicating IMO it seems like CMx2 is being designed to be more like a better version of Close Combat than how I think of CMx1. (Not that I didn't like Close Combat but I prefer CMx1 because of the larger scope.)

Argh... I don't know why it is some people refuse to read what I write! CMx2 is designed the same way CMx1 was designed in terms of the scale. THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO DIFFERENCE. The customers changed CMx1 to be something it never was intended to be, and that is a BN/RGT level game. Absolutely ZERO design effort was put into that. NONE. Yet I keep hearing this thing over and over again about how we are changing the scale and doing something differently this time around when the facts are completely, and utterly, the opposite.

So, for the last time... we have not changed anything. You BN/RGT people are ASKING that we change things NOT keep them the same. You are asking for CMx2's design to be fundamentally altered to suit your own concept of what CM should be in your own minds. And no matter how many times you ask, the answer will be exactly the same - NO

Plus, CC was a platoon level game. It couldn't even handle a full Company from what I remember of it.

Argh

Steve

[SgtMuhammed]

So in other words it is going to be a FPS with division level overtones.

Got it.

[Battlefront.com]

Hey... TheCapt is back! Welcome back

First of all, let me remind you and everybody else that we aren not saying that the way you play the game is wrong. We are not saying that the game you want us to make is a bad idea. What we are saying is that it isn't practical for us nor is it a good thing for anybody. The reason CMx1 was so great, the MAIN REASON, is because of our clear vision and execution of that vision. Forgetting what it is we are making, and trying to be all things to all people, is disaster in the making. I know you guys have a very hard time undestanding where the fine line between success and failure is, but we're quite sure of where it is. And how are we so sure? We call it experience

but warfare at the Coy/Bn level can only carry one so far.

Well, I think that can be said about any level of combat. For me, I got my start in wargaming at the Army level of play. That means smallest unit was a Division. I felt the same way about anything smaller than many people here feel about things smaller than Battalion. So I am sure it doesn't have anything to do with the level per se, but what the individual wants to get out of the level of play.

When I played CC games I felt it was too small, mostly because so few weapons systems wanted to be boxed in by that small of a playing area. It was primarily an infantry game. And I think it did a good job of it in CC2. CC3 and CC4 they tried to make it more into an armor game, and it really wasn't set up for that. In our opinion we don't think the CM scale works well for BN/RGT level. Some people obviously disagree, and I've seen people say that CC4 was the best of them all. Different strokes for different folks

As for the larger campaign system in CC... I didn't like it. I found CC2, the only one I played to any degree, to be rather unfun. I got bounced back and forth between the same battles far too often. Also too often a battle started out with two tanks at 100m in LOS. Oh yeah Other things annoyed me about it, but its been so long since I played. It was, however, one of the best attempts at mixing two entirely different game systems together. CC3 and CC4 were not well liked by CC2 players, so I'll guess that I'd agree that CC3 and CC4 were not improvements.

What we are shooting for, though not with the first release, is to have multiplayer CoOp play games. That would put in you command of a Platoon or a Company in conjunction with other people commanding Platoons or Companies. Too much to bite off for the first release, unfortunately, so we'll just have to see when we can get it in there. The game system itself is inherently designed to handle it when we can do it.

Metacampaign games... yup, a number of people have done some interesting things with it. This is not something we are going to do because we simply don't have the time. Distracting ourselves with separate game systems will mean compromising the core of the game. Not a good idea! Since people have been able to do big campaign stuff for CMx1 they will likely be able to do it for CMx2.

Steve

[Zalgiris 1410]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

I'm going to guess that multi-battalion sized games are not going to be possible for a whlie due to hardware issues.

Argh... I don't know why it is some people refuse to read what I write! CMx2 is designed the same way CMx1 was designed in terms of the scale. THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO DIFFERENCE.

So, for the last time... we have not changed anything.

[A.E.B]

Zalgiris 1410

There was a scenario called "To the Volga" in CMBB that was a 15,000 pointer.

At the time CMBB hit the market, few PCs could really handle the processing required, meaning that after hitting the GO button you could read War and Peace before the turn finished processing.

Several years down the tracks, most modern PCs can process a turn that size in a few minutes at most (my PC takes 20-30 seconds for a 5,000 pointer with a lot of combat).

So, if I am hearing correctly, there will be no force limit in CMX2. If people want to play a multi-company monster, nothing is stopping them.

What BFC will do however is tailor the game and its demands on CPUs so that the bog-standard PC can easily handle a company level battle with all the eye candy and extra processing for things like relative spotting.

As the average PC gets better, bigger CMX2 battles become more practicable.

That is what occurred with CMBO and CMBB, and BFC didn't plan for it to happen (have they never heard of stealing the credit????).

Now, back to the import issues of PBEM and a campaig............

A.E.B

[Pvt. Ryan]

From what I can tell, Steve has not said that CMx2 won't allow us to play games with battalion sized forces, but that even the best computers out there won't be able to handle it. We can put all the troops on a map that we want, but our rigs will chug along at an unacceptably slow pace while computing turns and frame rates will drop too low to be enjoyable. Even my 3.6 Ghz processor and 256 MB video card can't really handle the large Stalingrad scenarios from CMBB. Plus, CMx2 is going to have way more under the hood and on the screen than CMx1 did, with 1:1 unit representation, dynamic lighting, more highly detailed vehicles, units, and terrain, and a new spotting system. The data to be crunched and the graphics to be displayed in a company level game in CMx2 may be more than that of a battalion level game in CMx1.

Well, AEB said the same thing while I was typing my post.

[Battlefront.com]

Yes, AEB and Pvt. Ryan are correct. That is what I have been saying. I have also been saying that we aren't purposefully supporting BN/RGT sized battles in CMx2 any more than we did for CMx1. And since we had zero support for them in CMx1, we have zero support for them in CMx2. That being said, we aren't doing anything special to restrict huge games in CMx2, just like we didn't for CMx1. Basically, whatever you guys manage to do with what we release is your own business

BTW, I remember a scenario that Rune did. In fact, it was one of the scenarios that got him the nickname "Evil Rune". It was a massive CMBO scenario called "Battle of the Bulge" or something like that. I think there was a battalion of tanks on each side. Each turn took something like 10 minutes to crunch once the shooting started. My framerate was, oh, at about slideshow rates too. And I had a pretty good system at the time. People that bought CMBB and CMAK only don't remember those days because, even though the core engine is the same the hardware wasn't.

Oh, and then there was Rune's massive 101st assault on Berchtesgaden. What a monster that was! Less tanks so better crunch times (tanks SUCK up the CPU cycles), but still far too long for turn crunchings for me to finish. Of course on my current computers it would probably take 30seconds to crunch

Steve

[aka_tom_w]

OK then

at least THAT is settled!

-tom w

[jeffsmith]

Originally posted by aka_tom_w:

OK then

at least THAT is settled!

-tom w

At least 'til the next person who doesn't read existing posts

decides to bring it (or any other well covered topic) up again

[Zalgiris 1410]

O.K. BFC now I'm crystal clear, so AIUI with CMx2 I'm gonna get to experience things the way it was in them olden days with CMBO!

[WineCape]

Originally posted by jeffsmith:

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

OK then

at least THAT is settled!

-tom w

At least 'til the next person who doesn't read existing posts

decides to bring it (or any other well covered topic) up again </font>

[rune]

As Steve knows, I will push the hardware to see how far I can push it. he forgets to mention the beta test scenario where I had more King Tigers on the map then were ever built in reality. Unplayable, of course, but to see if the system could handle it or freeze up.

I plan on doing the same with CMX2. How many Space Lobsters can fit on a map? How long will it take to process a turn at that size? Can the butter projector fire over the buildings? Etc. All part of alpha/beta testing LONG before we start making scenarios for the game.

Oh, if anyone here is a Saturday Night Live fan, do you remember when the satellite was going to crash? Might have been skylab? SNL did a skit where they were attacked by giant lobsters? I plan on recreating it for CMX2.

Rune

[Philippe]

And what about the Leather Goddesses of Phobos ?

[Vanir Ausf B]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

...we aren't purposefully supporting BN/RGT sized battles in CMx2 any more than we did for CMx1. And since we had zero support for them in CMx1, we have zero support for them in CMx2.

Well, maybe a little more than zero. CMx1 did have battalion formations available for purchase. They were very useful and it would be nice if this were in CMx2 also.

[Battlefront.com]

Bn level formations are within the scope of a Company sized game, hence their inclusion in both CMx1 and CMx2 games. But I blame the ambiguity of wargamer naming conventions for the confusion of scale. Generally, as a rule of thumb, I have found the most common way of identifying the scale is to call it whatever the largest maneuver element is. In CM this is a Company. Yes CMx1 had Battalion HQs, but those were thrown in almost at the last minute and functionally were no different than Company HQs, so they really aren't relevant.

Steve

[Zalgiris 1410]

Steve, Steve, Steve you BFC, you may not have thought of them as relevent when, at the very last minute, they were included on the map as a unit in the CMx1 games, but I use my imagination and prefer to think of them as though they are Forward / Tactical Btln HQs. Actually I do the same thing with Company HQs as well, because they seem to operate more like a glorified Pltn HQ than a real Coy HQ with all its attendant equipment and cargo.

Slap me around and call me Susan if you must, but that's how I've always played my CMBB & CMAK.

[mrpwase]

So basically, the first CMx2 title (and perhaps the second one) will be company level due to hardware limitations, and then when we get better computers we can play bigger battles. Gotcha. That's what I wanted to hear.

[juan_gigante]

When I become a billionaire, I will have built for me the fastest computer possible to create by man, and I shall play the entire battle of Stalingrad using CM.

[Paul AU]

CMx2 is designed the same way CMx1 was designed in terms of the scale.

There’s lot of people like me who prefer the company sized game.

It’s true that the element of chance grows as the game-scale shrinks, but personally I find the workload of larger games cancels out their advantages. Because you still have to manage things at a platoon/squad level.

So, just a reminder that some people are very happy that CMx2 is staying at the scale CMx1 was designed for.