Where we're headed from here... a quick glance

[SgtMuhammed]

So far I have had no problem identifying my core units. When you are playing the Thunder campaign and lose a Stryker you know you have lost a core unit because your guys are walking in the next mission.

Much of what you guys are asking is on the campaign designer. If you want to increase immersion then simply state in the briefing what units make up your core TF. Later missions would then include statements like, "for this mission the remnants of C 1-39 Armor has been attached to your TF," or "3rd Platoon has been detached to secure the brigade passage point so we are a little short handed today."

One thing I do think is really needed is a more visible C2 representation. There seems to be little real effect when a unit loses command and almost no sense of transfered command if the unit leadership takes a hit. At least not that I have noticed.

[Huntarr]

Originally posted by Combatintman:

I disagree with this whole core units concept - it is a wargaming construct - you're all screaming for them because you've seen them elsewhere. In real life I doubt any battalion or company commander would be thrilled to know that his command is an auxilliary unit. The concept doesn't exist in real life western armies so why should it be represented in CMSF?

I agree with you about not in real life. USMC makes no difference in regular and reserve forces. They are trained at the same Depots Diego (sunscreeners) & PI (skinsosofters). Advanced schools are also the same.

On the concept of Core units in game. I totally understand it. If you wanted to have a variety of units for differenct situations you just attach them. When the mission is done the core units move on to the next mission, attachments redeploy elsewhere. A rather elegant solution for a game.

[gibsonm]

I don’t see an issue with you being say OC (Officer Commanding) so and so Company and for this phase you have such and such Platoon attached (and maybe even such and such Platoon from your Company detached).

Where I would take issue though would be if the Infantry PL organic to your Company (and say part of your “core” force if you like) was somehow worth more points or more important than an identical Infantry PL attached to your Company for a specific mission.

There should be no difference in tasking for an “organic“ PL as opposed to a “attached” PL, which is the issue of regarding part of your force as expendable because they aren’t part of the “core” force.

[Webwing]

I think it is great that this is left to the campaign designer.

It's another tool in the hands of the designer.

It's just a matter of warning the player in the intro of the campaign how you used it

After experimenting a lot with campaign options I got to the conclusion that all units should be core units. No matter if they just show up once.

The player should think of them all as core. He should not know in advance if a unit will show up again or not. This way he will treat all of them with care.

So maybe a tank platoon will show up in mission 2 and then again in mission 5.

You can tell the player that his main task force is this battalion, for instance. But the other units that appear might show up again later in the campaign. Take good care of them all.

On the other hand I ask myself this:

- A commander having at his disposal his own troops and say, some units from the Afghanistan army, is he going to look at them in the same way?

-

[SgtMuhammed]

To be honest, if it were a Western commander with attached Afgan troops he would probably rely more on his own guys for important missions. Unless the team has been serving together for a while the commander is not likely to have much faith in the abilities of the Afgans.

[SgtMuhammed]

The best way to protect your troops is to accomplish the mission so you don't have to go back in again. Who does it is just not really a consideration.

[Cpl Steiner]

SgtMuhammed,

Surely the point is that with some units being core and some not, losing core units is going to be detrimental to your force strength in later missions of the campaign. I know in real life you wouldn't make such a distinction but it is, after all, just a game, and thus subject to gamey tactics such as preserving units you know you might need in future battles at the expense of those you know you won't need again.

Webwing,

Your proposal, of having all units in the campaign part of a core unit OOB, is an elegant and very clever solution. I suppose the only thing against it is that some units will be "more core" than others - i.e. will turn up again in more scenarios. Once the player has played the campaign once, they will have a fair idea of what is important to preserve and what is not.

[Battlefront.com]

I'm with Combatintman 100% on this one. In real life commanders aren't told "OK, you have x units and y units. Make damned sure you don't lose x because your future promotions depend on it. But the y units... eh... who cares!" OK, dictatorships might, but not warm and fuzzy democracies

The Vulture,

If you didn't know which ones the 'core' units were, then there was a fairly big difference in outcome based on luck. You could be penalised or rewarded for guessing wrong.

Exactly You're supposed to take equally good care of ALL of your units. If you feel you need to bloody one up, then select the best unit for the job based on tactical considerations, not which unit patch is on their arms.

Sirocco,

A big part of a campaign is identifying with your core units. Of course that can be abused, but to throw out a core component of campaigns to avoid some people doing that is a poor design choice, IMHO

Well, I disagree that it is "some people". I'd guess that 99.9% of us who have played a campaign game with core units automatically give the non-core guys the really crappy assignments. Or at least switch into that mode when things start getting messy. Since these systems always penalize you more for losing a core unit than an auxiliary one, there is absolutely no way to ovecome this from a game design standpoint. Well, except to make it unclear which ones are core and which ones aren't

Having said that, I do agree that something is lost by not having an overt way to recognize your primary units. In CM:SF, as it is, this is possible to do but it isn't overt. Meaning, if you see B Company, 1st Battalion in 2 or 3 battles, it's probably core. If you see a specialized unit for the first time 5 battles in, it is probably not core. But note that I'm saying "probably" here, so it's definitely not the same as labeling things "Core" and "Auxiliary".

What I hope to get into the game at some point is a compromise that preserves the realism we have now with more overt indicators of core units.

Steve

[Combatintman]

For those of us that say it is only a game - and yes I know the clue is in the word wargaming - sure it is, but why sacrifice realism to support a flawed concept that people have seen in a couple of other games when it is entirely unnecessary?

Its like the debate about that other wargaming Holy Grail - the points system. Everyone wants it because thy're used to it from a whole raft of other games. In real life a battalion or company commander doesn't get told - you've got 600 points to spend, now get down the tank park. He gets told - your battalion will lose A Company for this mission and will have B Squadron attached.

As is explained quite clearly in the manual - task-organisation uses an abstracted points system to ensure balance but employs realistic TO&Es. Same with the campaign issue - core units are deliberately hidden from players.

As to the Afghan analogy - the answer is no regarding a greater willingness to throw the ANA into the more tricky tasks. They are given tasks that are within their capabilities and this is for a number of reasons:

1). Whatever casualties they take will have to be extracted by your IRT. This in itself may require you to divert your CAS to support the insert and extraction of the IRT or to call up ECAS.

2). Those casualties will be treated at your medical facilities.

3). If they fail in their 'tricky' task it will almost certainly require your reserve to be committed at a time and place that ideally you don't want to (although I understand that a reserve be necessity may have to do that).

4). The exit strategy is built upon Afghan solutions - therefore it makes no sense to use the ANA as cannon fodder.

[Peter Cairns]

Steve,

Just a thought but how about this.

Would it be possible at some stage to have a split where the core units and their objectives were set by the player while the attached units and objectives were AI controlled.

Alternatively attached " supporting" units could be linked to core units so that it would support the core units mission. Thus an M1 platoon could be under AI control but for the scenario would shadow the 1st infantry platoon in whatever task it was given.

The player would control the core Inf platoon but the AI the M1's in support.

I know the hope was to at some point be able to have more than one player on each side so this could fit in with that. It would also allow the AI to take over if someone dropped out.

Peter.

[gibsonm]

Why would you do this?

If you have a task based Combat Team, the task is the set of orders you have been given.

You don’t give a part of “your” organisation one set of orders and another part of “your” organisation some other orders from somewhere else.

If you as the senior commander gives them assets to achieve something you add the “something” to the task list in “Groupings, Missions and Tasks“. For example I as the BG CO might want Combat Team X to achieve something like “secure Hill 123” and I also need a good anti armour support by fire (SBF) position at GR 12345678.

I don’t put two organisations in the one piece of ground, say the basic Stryker Coy and order it “to secure Hill 123” and an independent Tk PL and tell it to “est a SBF at Grid 12345678”.

I allocate the Tank PL to the Stryker Coy under some sort of command relationship and give the resulting Cbt Team the tasks of:

Secure Hill 123

Est a SBF at Grid 12345678

The Cbt Team OC commands both assets and knows he has to achieve both tasks.

This is the whole basis of “unity of command”

[Sirocco]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

I'd guess that 99.9% of us who have played a campaign game with core units automatically give the non-core guys the really crappy assignments. Or at least switch into that mode when things start getting messy. Since these systems always penalize you more for losing a core unit than an auxiliary one, there is absolutely no way to ovecome this from a game design standpoint.

What about factoring in the proportion of aux losses to core losses and either crediting or debiting the "score" accordingly? You could win the battle but effectively be relieved of command for poor leadership. Of course coding that to take into account unit types would take some thought.

[Omenowl]

I do think protection of certain units should be worth more purely for the scenario. Tasks such as your job is to protect a group of translators. Casualties to the translators count more than others. Same with higher level commanders. Losing your CO or Battalion commander should count more than losing your squad leader. This helps more realistic tactics by understanding and placing your units in more realistic conditions. It also gives the enemy more incentive to attack an area if they find a high profile target (IE Prince William would have been a major relations issue if he was captured more than say his Battalion Commander).

[Battlefront.com]

Peter Cairns,

Think about how much AI would be required to pull that off. Then think of how much more AI would be required before we would stop seeing 10 concurrent complaint threads about how sucky the AI is. Ah, forget about it... save the brain juice. The answer is "a ton" and "more than any game developer could ever muster, including us"

Sirocco,

Booting someone out of a Campaign for misuse of units should apply to all units, not just some. Again, the point is you should not be treating units differently. The best way to avoid that "gamey" problem is to avoid it

Omenowl,

This is possible already. The scenario designer can specify (for example) a Blue unit for Red to "Destroy", then in the Blue briefing instruct him to not lose that unit if he wants to win the game. All that is needed is enough points for Red to Destroy that unit to win the game and there you go... all set! Red kills that one unit and the game is lost for Blue even if all other units are 100% A-OK.

Steve

[Pvt. Ryan]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

Booting someone out of a Campaign for misuse of units should apply to all units, not just some. Again, the point is you should not be treating units differently. The best way to avoid that "gamey" problem is to avoid it

The idea would be to penalize the player for losing aux units in an effort to minimize favoring core units. The player would have to make a choice between sacrificing possible victory vs. loss of core units that he wants to preserve.

[Combatintman]

Omenowl,

I take your point with command groups but you should be doing that already. One of the biggest discussions that always took place when I was an Observer/Controller was the location of the Commander's TAC or the position of the commander himself. Also it was Prince Harry and not Prince William and if you will recall he was employed as a JTAC on Op HERRICK which means he will have been very much up front with the action.

Back to the core units thing - I say again this is an artificial construct. I have no idea why many of you think it is a good idea and I am familiar with it having played Panzer and Allied General. I certainly husbanded core units in those campaigns because then I could build up their strength points past strength level 10. In effect that means that they could be built up way beyond authorised TO&E - now tell me the realism in that?

Personally I wouldn't have the things at all but if we must have them then Webwing's solution is the only one that has any merit.

Gibsonm - Too many tasks there surely? I'd plump for the same TASKORG and just say 'Secure Hill 123' and let OC X Coy Gp sort it out.

[Sirocco]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

Booting someone out of a Campaign for misuse of units should apply to all units, not just some. Again, the point is you should not be treating units differently. The best way to avoid that "gamey" problem is to avoid it

But for a campaign to work you have to associate with the core units. I don't see how you can work around that. If you don't have that association you're left with a string of scenarios. To remove that because of possible abuse of attached units would be like not eating ice cream because you don't want to wash the spoon afterwards.

[ChrisND]

This is really a non-issue. It is completely on the campaign designer to indicate which units are core, or to put a * next to their names. Or to NOT indicate who they are. And it is on the campaign designer to get the player to associate with his units, whether through story, personalities, etc.

Right now, we can have secret core units, or known core units. It is win-win for both camps.

[ April 21, 2008, 06:05 AM: Message edited by: Normal Dude ]

[Webwing]

Originally posted by Normal Dude:

This is really a non-issue. It is completely on the campaign designer to indicate which units are core, or to put a * next to their names. Or to NOT indicate who they are. And it is on the campaign designer to get the player to associate with his units, whether through story, personalities, etc.

Right now, we can have secret core units, or known core units. It is win-win for both camps.

I totally agree.

Take your complains to the campaign designers!

Still on the topic of campaign there is the issue of the branches.

If you win a mission you go to misson 2, if you lose you go to misson 3.

Branching is great and makes the campaign so much more... well, dynamic! Although this is called semi dynamic.

But I found that most every player plays to win. If he loses, he will play the mission again and again until he gets his win. So the missions you created as branches where just a waste of time.

I guess that's why we won't see many branched campaigns around.

The workaround is to set the threshold higher, for instance to Tactical Victory.

That's an OK solution.

Now I wonder how hard it would be to add to this a random parameter to send the player to the branches no matter the result. 50% chances to go to A or B.

With this you could have a web of missions randomly assembled that would make a campaign much more interesting to be played again.

-

[ April 21, 2008, 08:40 AM: Message edited by: Webwing ]

[Sirocco]

Originally posted by Normal Dude:

This is really a non-issue. It is completely on the campaign designer to indicate which units are core, or to put a * next to their names. Or to NOT indicate who they are.

I think it's an issue on a narrow scale in terms of the campaigns that ship with the game. And I also think it's an issue in the wider sense of building a campaign system that's superior to the current one.

[Webwing]

The campaign system has been criticized for being just a sequence of missions. Well, in RL a campaign is just that.

Again it's up to the campaign designer to create a story, a background where all those missions will fit in a natural way. Also to have the player get the feeling that each mission is part of a bigger picture.

I tried to accomplish that in my Ghost campaign with the help of a PDF file.

If you can do that, work well with the core units and with the branches then you'll find that this system is very solid.

As with the mission editor, the burden is on the designer's shoulders. BF has only provided the tools.

-

[ April 21, 2008, 09:02 AM: Message edited by: Webwing ]

[Combatintman]

Ok lets put this another way ... why are all of you core unit fans hell bent on making this game unrealistic?

This associating with your core units thing for the purposes of immersion is totally flawed. In real life, as has been pointed out by myself and other serving soldiers, the commander will conduct mission analysis and come up with a plan using every unit available according to their relative strengths and weaknesses. This happens even in the British Army which is more tribal than most (it has been said that the one guarantee about the British Army is that it spends more time fighting itself than the enemy). To take an example - CO 1 PWRR Battlegroup is not going to throw his tanks in first because they are from A Squadron Royal Scots Dragoon Guards ('auxilliary' in artificial wargaming construct terms) rather than 1 PWRR ('core' in artificial wargaming construct terms). He will use his tanks in such a manner to achieve the mission making best use of their strengths and weaknesses.

Remember one of the responsibilities of the commander is to all of the troops under his command - when one dies irrespective of their cap badge or arm of service - he is ultimately responsible. So I repeat - what you are asking for is unrealistic. The design choice that has been made is realistic, the trouble it seems is that many of you are too conservative in outlook to accept this. What next - do we want to go back to hexes and zones of control?

[Cpl Steiner]

My main problem with the campaign is that you don't have a unit roster that you can look at to get a feel for what has happened over the course of the campaign. This sort of functionality requires that you know what units are core. The game already tracks the core units; it just doesn't give the player the opportunity to look at the OOB and see what has happened to it. Such a feature would probably not take too much programming to do. It would basically just need some way of rendering the current OOB on the screen, possibly with the addition of text showing what happened to missing units (e.g. 2nd Vehicle, 3rd Platoon - destroyed in "Two Bridges" engagement).

[Sirocco]

Originally posted by Combatintman:

Ok lets put this another way ... why are all of you core unit fans hell bent on making this game unrealistic?

Here's the thing; it's a game. You don't get more unrealistic than that.

People aren't arguing for Hamstertruppen, just a sense of actually caring what happens to units. If you don't care for what happens to your units in a campaign you pulled the rug out from under the whole concept.

[YankeeDog]

Originally posted by Sirocco:

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

Ok lets put this another way ... why are all of you core unit fans hell bent on making this game unrealistic?

Here's the thing; it's a game. You don't get more unrealistic than that.

People aren't arguing for Hamstertruppen, just a sense of actually caring what happens to units. If you don't care for what happens to your units in a campaign you pulled the rug out from under the whole concept. </font>