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

[Webwing]

You know what?

The thing I like most about CMSF is that it manages to attract a wide range of gamers. It is quite accurate in its simulations and close to what the RL situations and vehicles might be.

On the other hand it is fun to play even if you have no military background. And it can actually be a tool to learn more about all this stuff. It has been for me.

CMSF manages to appeal to both the pure gamer as it does to the guys with a military background. And all the others in between.

I suspect the extremes won't like the game. The hardcore grognards in one end and the RTS click fest fans in the other.

But obviously each gamer will expect different things from the game.

Some like QB some like designer's scenarios. Some like them both.

Well, BF has included both and has promised some major improvements to the QB system.

I think this game engine is a very well balanced mixture between a hard core wargame, with all the details and calculations, and an action packed and full of eye candy wargame.

We all have a list of things that we think would be nice to have in the game. No two lists will ever match though.

Of course we try to shout as loud as possible what we have in our lists in the hope that Steve will include some of it in his own list.

As Steve's is the only list that counts anyway!

-

[Omenowl]

I would like to see a unit roster. It reminds me of the old xcom games where you could see see the status of your soldiers. I don't expect any meaningful experience or promotions or even awards, but it would be nice to see all the ranks and names of all of your troops in a campaign.

I do understand that is very problematic for very large forces, however for a company or maybe even a battalion sized force it would be kind of cool to see the status of your vehicles, troops, etc. Maybe it would be up to the scenario designer to allow for % chance of repair or replacements. A heavily decimated squad would allow the survivors to integrate back into other depleted units.

[Webwing]

Originally posted by Omenowl:

Maybe it would be up to the scenario designer to allow for % chance of repair or replacements.

This can already be done.

But the designer must tell the player in the briefing if he thinks it is relevant to reveal this info.

There is now way now for the player to know this unless the person that designed the campaign reveals it to him.

-

-

[Combatintman]

Ok - another go at this argument:-

For the sake of heresy I am working on the assumption that Battlefront implements the core units idea ... now read on.

Lets say that your initial campaign order says you are TF Whatever which is based on 1/32 Inf.

In the opening brief of the campaign you get told that this is pretty much your settled TASKORG for the whole campaign (for simplicity I'm ignoring guns and engineers here)

You have:

A/1/32 Inf

B/1/32 Inf

C/2/2 Armor

Mission 1 TASKORG and startstates:

A/1/32 Inf (100%)

B/1/32 Inf (100%)

C/2/2 Armor (100%)

End of mission 1 Combat Effectiveness (because you've looked after them (core units after all) is as follows)

A/1/32 Inf (89%)

B/1/32 Inf (92%)

C/2/2 Armor (95%)

Mission 2:

For Mission 2 you get told that A/1/32 Inf is on another mission somewhere else.

B/1/32 Inf (start state 95% - some casualty replacement)

C/2/2 Armor (start state 98% - some casualty replacement)

End of mission 2 Combat Effectiveness (because you've looked after them (core units after all) is as follows)

B/1/32 Inf (88%)

C/2/2 Armor (91%)

Mission 3:

Back to the original TASKORG

A/1/32 Inf

B/1/32 Inf

C/2/2 Armor

Start state as follows:

A/1/32 Inf (start state 80% - some casualty replacement)

B/1/32 Inf (start state 92% - some casualty replacement)

C/2/2 Armor (start state 95% - some casualty replacement)

Oh my god I hear all you core unit fans cry - what happened to A Coy? They are only at 80% - what happened in Mission 2? I had no control over that!

Now feel the immersion gentlemen. So that is a way core units can work - but hey you'll never ask for that because you can't control it. Stick with what you can control which is that every battle in a campaign you fight you employ the best tactics you can with the most appropriate force elements (based on function in combat rather than core or auxilliary labels). Then you will feel the pain of every real world commander when you take losses and then you will be immersed and more importantly you will have a better understanding of what warfare is all about rather than trying to gain an artificial advantage through an artificial construct.

So - if the example above is adopted - bring core units on! I can hack it what about the rest?

[Webwing]

Combatintman,

Yes, when people ask for new options they want more control, not less. This whole core/auxiliary units might get a bit confusing in that light.

-

Now instead of debating how it would be IF this or that were implemented I'd like to invite you to take a look at the campaign Paper Tiger has just released.

For me this is a very good example of how to make good use of what we have already in place now in the current system.

Only the last posts from his campaign thread:

Originally posted by afreu:

Just played the "Hill 142" mission. The weird thing is that the enemy gets a 2000 point bonus. I didn't meet the artillery observer objective but occupied all zones. Alltogether 1250 points vs. 2250 points for the enemy - tactical defeat. O_o

Originally posted by Paper Tiger:

That sounds right. That mission can only be successfully completed IF you kill the artillery spotter. Failure to do so results in a branch leading to a mission with more artillery support for the AI. The bonus was given to the AI to make sure that ONLY this condition (ie getting the artillery observer) was the deciding factor. Of course, you can't win it if you don't control the village either. To make a campaign dynamic with real consequences to success and failure, it's necessary to skew the VP conditions to ensure the player fulfills his objective.

Anyway I'll have another look at it this morning. Did you win in the earlier missions afreu?

[Combatintman]

Webwing - sure I've seen the thread - I referred to it in an earlier post - I admit stretching the argument a bit but Paper Tiger said in his intro - don't restart the campaign if you don't get a total victory. The second poster who'd actually played the first couple of missions then coughed up to that exact crime.

That is why I vehemently argue against unnecessary gamey stuff because people will identify it and take advantage of it in the interests of winning. As I know and many armies know - you learn more from defeat than winning - that is why the respective training centres around the ABCA nations have OPFORs that kick ass.

Now I do appreciate that there is a game aspect here and that people derive fun out of winning. However I would rather people derived fun out of winning having used realistic tactics with a realistic force against a realistic enemy in a realistic environment. The reason for that is I am also a wargamer and I know that wargaming is more than winning - people get wrapped up in the details and they want their infantry squad to enter a building in as near realistic a fashion as they can.

The bottom line however is realism - it is a default standard that we've come to expect from Battlefront - they work hard at it from what I see - well I know - I've got all of the CMX1 games and have recreated Kampfgruppe Peiper's advance. I've read the books - walked the ground and on my map when the Kampfgruppe emerges from the woods in the early morning mist from the Chateau de Froidcour towards Stoumont and I lock my view to the lead Panther - I feel like I'm there. This is ground I walk frequently - I've led 6 battlefield tours there and the more I do it and the more I think back to my re-creation of it in CMBO it grabs me even more. That for me is realism. No gamey stuff - an exact recreation (as far as the literature allows anyway) of the units and the environment over which the battle was fought.

[ April 21, 2008, 08:55 PM: Message edited by: Combatintman ]

[Battlefront.com]

Secondbrooks,

I agree quite much in this. I'm not so much about core troops (wouldn't actually care less), but how troops under my command have performed...

I agree too I've said a few times already (keeps getting lost for some reason!) that I do feel that we can make an improvement to how well players relate to units appearing again in the next, or later, battle. That can be done without going the traditional artificial, and completely "gamey", core unit's are more valuable than auxiliary system.

I'll state this again... there is not an argument on the face of this Earth that can convince me, or anybody in uniform, that the sort of systems in Steel Panthers, Panzer General, and others is in any way realistic. It's a game convention just like powerups and reincarnation are. Sure, they might be fun to some, but not to others since fun is subjective. What is not subjective is realism... and clearly it's not realistic.

Again, there are ways to improve the love and affection stuff without bowing out of realism. That's the direction we're headed in.

Steve

[ChrisND]

Originally posted by Combatintman:

Sirocco,

Yes the arguing from authority gambit clearly has no value at all does it?

In this case, I don't see the relevance. I also fail to see how giving the player the ability, if he so wishes, to know how his command is performing over the campaign equates with supersonic Bradleys and hovering Abrams.

[Sirocco]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

there is not an argument on the face of this Earth that can convince me, or anybody in uniform

I fail to see how realistic it is that as the commander you have no idea what unit you're in control of, and what units have been attached for this particular mission.

But, again, your bat and ball.

[Itael]

Sorry if it was suggested before but how about you get to choose which units to keep for the next battle?

This way you still play 'fair&safe' with your units and the ones who did well will be your 'core' units for the next battle.

Itai

[Secondbrooks]

Originally posted by Itael:

Sorry if it was suggested before but how about you get to choose which units to keep for the next battle?

This way you still play 'fair&safe' with your units and the ones who did well will be your 'core' units for the next battle.

Itai

I can imagine what my imaginative fellow commander would say when i keep all his latest T-72M1V TURMS-T models (temporarilly attached to my company) and return to him my beaten militia company instead (which used to form my original core troops)

...

Wait A minute! Now i know why our Batallion commander's quidebook (JVO), is suggesting that Brigades ATGM-company wont be submitted as whole to any batallion and Batallion ATGM-platoon as whole shouldn't be given to Company :eek:

[ April 22, 2008, 08:00 AM: Message edited by: Secondbrooks ]

[Clavicula_Nox]

The only thing I like about close combat was issuing awards to my soldiers who performed well. Nothing made me feel better than to pin a Silver Star onto the chest of a paratrooper who went above and beyond to secure his squad's objective, or a Knight's Cross onto the machine gunner who held one of the exit's on Omaha beach by himself, long after his supporting comrades were KIA/WIA and a nearby squad of infantry broke morale. On the flip side, I felt a strange emotional loss at the deaths of those 2 pixel-soldiers.

[Battlefront.com]

Sirocco,

I fail to see how realistic it is that as the commander you have no idea what unit you're in control of,

You do... all of the units are under your command

and what units have been attached for this particular mission.

In a battle the commander doesn't care. These are his units and he is equally responsible to higher authority for taking care of them.

In real life the sort of thing that Steel Panthers and Panzer General have does NOT EXIST. It doesn't, pure and simple. End of story. BIG PERIOD at the end of that. Done, over, finito-mussolini

Therefore, any argument for such a feature is inherently one that has nothing to do with reality. That's fine since we have things like that currently in the game for one reason or another. Just don't pollute an otherwise justifiable line of argument with bad logic. Stick to "I want this because I think it's more fun, realism be damned" and everything will be fine.

Again, I said there are things we are doing to give the player more sense of how the units go from battle to battle without repeating what we feel are the mistakes of other campaign systems. The mistake is making sure that the player cares more about some units than others, and therefore will favor some more than others. That's a counter productive concept and we won't be implementing it.

Steve

[Sirocco]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

Therefore, any argument for such a feature is inherently one that has nothing to do with reality. That's fine since we have things like that currently in the game for one reason or another. Just don't pollute an otherwise justifiable line of argument with bad logic. Stick to "I want this because I think it's more fun, realism be damned" and everything will be fine.

So, a company commander doesn't exist, he's just an officer floating around waiting for a battlegroup to be assigned to him, of which he has no permanent connection?

[Pandur]

that it is likely that there will be a form of TCP/IP WeGo for the Normandy game. Will it be exactly what WeGoers want? Probably not due to some technical issues and the time we'd need to make sure we could work around them. Therefore we have come up with what we feel is a viable compromise system that shoudl give WeGoers most of what they want. More on that in a couple of months when we get into the coding.

i find it great that it is no definite "nogo"! but it worries me becouse i dont know what one could possibly take out of TCPip WEGO. the only thing i could think of is the replay.

and TCPip WEGO without replay is wasted time im my eyes...who will play that!?

[MeatEtr]

What all CM fans really want to know is this.

WILL THERE BE COWBELL?

Gotta have that cowbell.

P.S. When can I pre-order the East front module?

[Battlefront.com]

Sirocco,

So, a company commander doesn't exist, he's just an officer floating around waiting for a battlegroup to be assigned to him, of which he has no permanent connection?

Sure he exists. Sure he has a permanent connection. What he isn't told is "today you have a MG Team under your command. Don't worry about them as much as your other guys. In fact, if you have a really crappy mission to do... they are the ones that should do it, because you won't be held to account for wasting their lives like you will one of your organic units".

I'll say this again... drop the realism line of argument and you're desire for core/auxiliary distinction becomes valid. Keep trying to argue realism and you're dead in the water. This is not a point open to debate... what you're asking for may not be unrealistic in the pure sense of the word, but when applied to a game it becomes "gamey".

Again, there is a way to have more affinity for core units, which is realistic AND fun, without having an utterly unrealistic game feature. So if you really want the tie to the core units then you should be happy since that's what we are going to work on improving. If you want a completely artificial, gamey construct that forces the player into unrealistic decisions... that's not going to happen.

Steve

Steve

[Sirocco]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

I'll say this again... drop the realism line of argument and you're desire for core/auxiliary distinction becomes valid. Keep trying to argue realism and you're dead in the water. This is not a point open to debate... what you're asking for may not be unrealistic in the pure sense of the word, but when applied to a game it becomes "gamey".

I'm sorry, but this makes no sense. You argue it's unrealistic, then it's realistic.

As company commander you know what's core and what's attached. If you want to mask that to prevent misuse, I can understand that. I think it hurts associating with your pixeltruppen which is one of the basics of a good campaign, but you're the boss, so, as you say, it's not open to debate.

Again, there is a way to have more affinity for core units, which is realistic AND fun, without having an utterly unrealistic game feature. So if you really want the tie to the core units then you should be happy since that's what we are going to work on improving. If you want a completely artificial, gamey construct that forces the player into unrealistic decisions... that's not going to happen.

Acknowledging a commanders core units - completely unrealistic? And who's forcing the player into unrealistic decisions?

[gibsonm]

Originally posted by Sirocco:

but you're the boss, so, as you say, it's not open to debate.

And yet you continue to prattle on?!

And yes, I have been a Sub Unit (Squadron / Company) Commander.

[Sirocco]

Originally posted by gibsonm:

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

but you're the boss, so, as you say, it's not open to debate.

And yet you continue to prattle on?!

And yes, I have been a Sub Unit (Squadron / Company) Commander. </font>

[Battlefront.com]

Sirocco,

Honestly, I don't know what your problem is. I've said a few dozen times that I'm sure we can do something to better to tie together the feeling of attachment to units. If that's what you're looking for, then why are you arguing with me?

Steve

[Sirocco]

I wasn't arguing with you, you misrepresented what I said. I take exception to that, but sadly that appears to have become your MO.

If you can do something you regard as being better, that's fine. But then your idea of QB's for CMx2 was better than the implementation in CMx1, as was the interface you came up with. Therefore please forgive my lack of confidence.

I said at the start of this thread that I hoped we could have a new, more productive atmopshere here, but with pricks like your testers running around loose with their arrogant and condascending attitudes I think there's little hope for that.

I might drop in here once in a blue moon, but after eight years this place no longer feels like a welcoming community full of mature debate. I hope somewhere down the road you rediscover the core ideals that made this a pleasant place to visit, but personally I'm done here.

[Webwing]

Originally posted by Sirocco:

I said at the start of this thread that I hoped we could have a new, more productive atmopshere her

but with pricks like your testers running around loose with their arrogant and condascending attitudes I think there's little hope for that.

I think there is hope for a productive atmosphere in here.

Actually I think there is already.

There has been some interesting discussions in this thread.

But you should avoid generalizations. That's where prejudices are borne.

If you feel someone has been rude to you I'd be glad if you directed your outrage at that person.

Do you know all beta testers?

Personally, I see no problem in the way you expressed your opinions here. Until now.

-

[Battlefront.com]

Sirocco,

I wasn't arguing with you, you misrepresented what I said. I take exception to that, but sadly that appears to have become your MO.

And you don't think you've overreacted at all? I've been addressing your posts politely and with explanations. Then you come back with one line quips. I don't think that's called for, do you?

If you can do something you regard as being better, that's fine. But then your idea of QB's for CMx2 was better than the implementation in CMx1, as was the interface you came up with. Therefore please forgive my lack of confidence.

And then you say...

I said at the start of this thread that I hoped we could have a new, more productive atmopshere here, but with pricks like your testers running around loose with their arrogant and condascending attitudes I think there's little hope for that.

I don't think the last few posts you've made have been up to the standards you were hoping to see in others. I've been trying to have a reasonable discussion with you and it seems that you don't want to have one.

I might drop in here once in a blue moon, but after eight years this place no longer feels like a welcoming community full of mature debate. I hope somewhere down the road you rediscover the core ideals that made this a pleasant place to visit, but personally I'm done here.

Again, I'm sorry to hear that. But it's your choice and I don't expect I can change your mind. I'm still not even sure why you are so hot under the collar about this.

Webwing,

If you feel someone has been rude to you I'd be glad if you directed your outrage at that person.

Do you know all beta testers?

The one that really got his dander up, as far as I can tell, isn't even a tester

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

We're at the traditional 300 post cut off, so closing this up now.

There is a thread about Campaigns already open that people can continue the discussion in if they wish. It's right here

Steve