CM:SF Deadend option.

[Peter Cairns]

This is just an idea for discussion and it would be a set of options that could be turned on and off.

The basic Idea is that when you take command of a unit you are linked to a relevant figure on the board, the company commander, or in a multi player game one of the platoon commanders.

At it's most basic, when or if that "Character" is killed the game ends. i.e. Your dead.

A second option would be for the AI to take over ( which should be an option for AFKB anyway as in a real time go if you get a phone call or call of nature, you don't want your guys just to stand still) for a short period before you "resurrect" as the next guy on the chain of command. The delay would represent the confusion of the battlefield switch over, and would depend of troop quality communications volume of incomming fire etc.

A third option would be to limit where and from what levels you could view, depending on your rank and command and control. i.e. you could only see from points where you actually had people instead of flying around, and you might only be able to see at lvl 1 ( ground level) for suppressed units etc.

This is all a bit FPS so thats why I think they should be switchable options.

Opinions please.

Peter.

[Panzer76]

No like.

On another note, seems your mainly responsible for any activity on the boards theses days.

[Cpl Steiner]

I don't think this would work well within the scope of CM.

However, in an FPS style game similar to "Brothers In Arms" I think it would be great to play a company CO or something. You would have to work closely with your radio man, requesting situation reports from your platoon leaders, giving orders to them based on their feedback, trying to assess the wider situation in the midst of a battle whilst at the same time trying to avoid getting you own head blown off.

It would make a fun game but it wouldn't be CM!

[aka_tom_w]

Originally posted by Cpl Steiner:

I don't think this would work well within the scope of CM.

However, in an FPS style game similar to "Brothers In Arms" I think it would be great to play a company CO or something. You would have to work closely with your radio man, requesting situation reports from your platoon leaders, giving orders to them based on their feedback, trying to assess the wider situation in the midst of a battle whilst at the same time trying to avoid getting you own head blown off.

It would make a fun game but it wouldn't be CM!

That sort of sound like the widely discussed "Command Level game" (once suggested by Steve to be some kind of text based "Zork" like war game).

OK

So...

I'll bite:

"You would have to work closely with your radio man, requesting situation reports from your platoon leaders, giving orders to them based on their feedback, trying to assess the wider situation in the midst of a battle whilst at the same time trying to avoid getting you own head blown off."

How would you design a game like that, (AND specifically the game interface for the CO (text based?) in the not to distant future on the fly "in game generated" text to speech or spoken voice(s) heard over radio static, or how about 3D animated faces and voices generated on the fly to simluate a video link with commanders in the field???)

Does that sound like fun?

Who knows,, it sounds to me like a night mare to code and Develop, It "might" have a chance if BFC partnered with a REALLY big game company like Electric Arts.

(or something)

tom w

[MikeyD]

For extra realism I think if you 'link' yourself to a specific unit and the unit dies the game should shut down and you should never be able to retart again.

There are several shooter games where transmigration of souls more-or-less happens. When you die you're transported into another bot, then you have to make your way back to the continuing battle. The problem with this idea in the CM games is you're not really playing a 'character' but the 'situation'. But his may have changed slightly in CMx2. I thought they once said that we might get an option of being tied to a specific bot for the duration of the game. Between this feature and the promise of realtime action we could find ourselves jumping between one dying bot and another as the game progresses. VERY un CMx1-like.

[Imperial Grunt]

I really like the idea of playing the CO of a company and being restricted to a first person perspective of the battlefield. That is as close to realistic combat command you can get without really doing it. Alot more mistakes would be made by players (exactly where is 3rd platoon's 1st squad?) And force on force scenarios where both players had to play in first person as the CO would be great. The confusion of not seeing things first hand and listening to reports and looking at a map to guess what the enemy is doing would be very realistic.

However, I do not think it is doable. First of all, you would have to be able to get a mission, be able to assess the situation and develop your plan, establish control measures such as check points, axis of advance, phase lines, etc.., issue unit tasks, plan fire support, etc.. because, unlike CM, all that has to be planned out in advance as much as possible in order for the unit to fight as a unit and not as a mob with guns. And all of that stuff takes some knowledge of military doctrine.

Second, there would have to be alot of SOPs that you as the player would have to know, and the AI would have to know to perform under certain conditions. And the subordinate units would have to continually report what they are doing, what they see, etc...Little things like tone of voice, gunfire in the background of the radio transmission, etc...mean alot. And you would have to be able to somehow talk to them to give frag orders and guidance. Very hard to do with a pull down menu.

Finally, if such a sim could be made, it would be an ideal small unit tactical sim, but not all that fun for most game players. The CO usually does not get to see much fighting personally. The command group and the fire support team (FAC, FO, NGFSpot teams) usually move together to get on dominate terrain so they can observe and manage the battle and firesupport. But that is not always doable. After developing a plan and issuing orders, the command group might just follow in trace of the main effort, with little input until the situation changes to a degree that a new course of action needs to occur.

A God's view movie would be great to watch afterwards though. People would realize why and how things can so wrong in combat so easily.

[MikeyD]

"...being restricted to a first person perspective of the battlefield."

Have you ever tried playing one of the old CMx1 games staying at ground level and never going beyond your own front line? Holy crap, the game gets challenging then! When artillery falls outside of LOS it REALLY falls outside of LOS! You hear the explosions, the ground shakes, but you don't have a clue what in hell's going on! Anyone bored with fighting in CMx1 just needs to abandon the 'God's eye view' and play a few games locked with your units. The anxiety level increases exponentially when you can't hover over the battlefield. It'll be an adventure and a half.

[ March 16, 2006, 02:30 PM: Message edited by: MikeyD ]

[aka_tom_w]

Originally posted by MikeyD:

"...being restricted to a first person perspective of the battlefield."

Have you ever tried playing one of the old CMx1 games staying at ground level and never going beyond your own front line? Holy crap, the game gets challenging then! When artillery falls outside of LOS it REALLY falls outside of LOS! You hear the explosions, the ground shakes, but you don't have a clue what in hell's going on! Anyone bored with fighting in CMx1 just needs to abandon the 'God's eye view' and play a few games locked with your units. The anxiety level increases exponentially when you can't hover over the battlefield. It'll be an adventure and a half.

Sadly I have never had the actual self discpline to pull that trick off, but I would be thrilled to play that style of FOG and limited view and intel if it was a FOW option, HINT HINT. (Both sides locked into Iron Man rules for the duration of the game, NO cheating!)

If I knew the other player's view as also limited to the same "level 1" view as mine I would think that would be a GREAT option of Fog of War and playing the game. It might be a GREAT new addition or FOW option or setting for their NEXT big game 1-2 years away) when the CMx2 engine goes to the WWII ETO for its next Expedition abroad.

-tom w

[LongLeftFlank]

Originally posted by MikeyD:

"...being restricted to a first person perspective of the battlefield."

Have you ever tried playing one of the old CMx1 games staying at ground level and never going beyond your own front line? Holy crap, the game gets challenging then! When artillery falls outside of LOS it REALLY falls outside of LOS! You hear the explosions, the ground shakes, but you don't have a clue what in hell's going on! Anyone bored with fighting in CMx1 just needs to abandon the 'God's eye view' and play a few games locked with your units. The anxiety level increases exponentially when you can't hover over the battlefield. It'll be an adventure and a half.

Amen to that. I'd love to see it as a FOW option. Re the "commander's eyes only" view, it would probably be asking a little too much of the AI to make all decisions for the troops unless you also had a game feature where you could give units a general set of orders for the battle and then let the AI follow the plan until first contact with the enemy dictates otherwise.

There's a very vivid account in "Across the Dark Islands" (Floyd Radike) of the 25th Division commander personally overseeing a hill assault on Guadalcanal from his OP:

'You can move over, Lieutenant, because I am going to share your position with you. I see you picked out the best observation on this line....' It looked like I had half the division headquarters on the reverse slope of the ridge....

A sniper round snapped pretty close to our position. The general handed the phone to the operations officer and turned to me. 'Get a machine gun,' he said....

The general pointed to the southwest and said, 'Set up the gun to cover that wooded knoll over there.'... The general gently pushed me aside and lumbered down behind the gun. I was going to ask him if he knew how to fire such a weapon -- and remembered in the nick of time that he had written the gun's manual. He looked over the sights and let a few bursts fly into the knoll. I followed the tracers that found their target.

'Did you see that, Lieutenant?'

'Yes sir.'

'Well, every time you hear them snap off a round from that knoll, you spray them with bullets. Get enough ammo.'

There was more talk on the phone, some of which got very salty.... "Look Mike, the charts we've got don't match the terrain, so sending coordinates is no good.... OK, now tie a handkerchief around your left arm and move into that clearing so I can see you."

[aka_tom_w]

The thing about "Iron Man" FOW rules or play style that interests me the most is it would almost totally elimate the odds based "min Max" mentality of making ALL tactical decisions based on "stacking" the odds in favour of attacking the opponet at his most obvious vulnerability.

Now sure this is a great tactica and some once had a Signature line here that said something like the true art of war (or tactics) is learning how to avoid a fair fight, so selecting a tactic to exploit the opponents vulnerabilities is a legitimate way to get the job done. BUT my point is that for MANY many years of old style war game (board game) play the only tactic any one every used was to find the stack with the weakest units and in attack it with three other stacks (hex based board game) of your strongest units and then claim that was "Good tactics". I played lots of board games and every time I played I HATED the fact that both players KNEWS with absolute certainity where all the other guys forces where. There was NO fog of war and it simply boiled down to an excercise in who could get the best min max battles and roll the dice the best by selectively attacking only the opponents weakest position or weakest units. Agian NO Fog of War.

NOW

Lets look at Iron Man Rules????

You want Fog of War, hell the FOW of might be so thick the game would be unplayable, BUT one thing for sure there would not be any of that "Min Max" crap, it would be a fly by the seat of your pants battle for sure. I truly hope the Iron Man FOW option is available on the CMx2 version of the WWII ETO so I can avenge my OLD old board game war gaming buddies with good tactics in a theatre of their choice (they ALWAYS played the Germans in WWII) in a game and setting and FOW setting that would make the only tactic they know USELESS! (look through all the counters, count all the odds and find the attack where your strongest units over run the other guys weakest unit!)

he he he

(sorry for the old, bad faith, bad memories, board game rant, I can 't remember how many times I had to play the Russian's on the opening day of Barbarosa!!)

-tom w

[Imperial Grunt]

I like the "Iron Man" FOW rules idea as well. But the AI has to be able to make sure squads and teams dont to obviously stupid stuff, like stop on the wrong side of a wall or stopping in a street when you wanted them to stop in a building. In CM, I found it absolutely necessary to micro-manage alot of teams because they did not go where any sane human would go. And the AI has to be strong enough to do all the things I mentioned before. But if you were playing another player with the same restrictions, then I guess alot would equal out, just not very realistically.

Another feature has to be that you can only observe the battlefield that you, as the CO with a command group, could observe within your LOS. But you would have your trusty military map (with all of the graphics that a map would have on it for a mission) and Stryker units would have thier digital things working for them as well. But these have to be seperate from the actual battlefield. A "battleboard" screen that continually updated and showed known and suspected enemy positions, friendly positions, control measures, fire support coordination measures, and force status would be really good. The player would use the battleboard more than actually looking around on the battlefield, but would do so to control the most vital part of his plan. A commander who runs around the battlefield to micro-manage his entire force will not only slow down the operational speed of his unit, but he will most very likely get killed, something that is not good for his unit. (Unless he was an asshole, in which case they might not grieve so much).

If a command group get engaged itself, then it would have to get busy defending itself, and not control the battle.

This would also work well with simulating the reality of maps not portraying the terrain accurately. The Syrian player could have certain terrain and intel advantages that the US player will not know about until he gets boots on the ground at that location. This would simulate "rat lines" and other hidden or unknown LOCs that the Syrians will be able to use from the beginning of a battle that the US player will not know about.

A replay feature from a "God's view" would be priceless at the end and excellent for AARs. And some scenarios may turn out to be fairly funny since this is game simulating combat and not combat itself.

[LongLeftFlank]

In lieu of trying to program the AI to deliver a level of functionality for our units that it can't do without annoying the hell out of us with utterly dumb/suicidal moves, perhaps an "Iron Man" FOW option would allow the following:

(a) You can ONLY watch the turn replay action through the eyes of the CO unit (at view level 1). i.e. he's the only one who gets the "big picture", assuming that he's picked a good OP (see Radike quote above). If the CO unit is destroyed, panicked or routed, you can keep playing, but your battle direction is hosed.

( During the orders phase, you can tab through all your units, viewing through their eyes at level 1, use the LOS tools, and give them orders. You'll be able to see the target lines and get basic info about their status and who's shooting at them, but that's all you really have to go on. If you want to issue orders to move to an area not yet in LOS, you'll need to eyeball it as best you can.

( The command lines are disabled -- you see only a message onscreen saying you're in/out of command.

© The real kicker is this: if friendly units are in LOS, you won't be able to skip to them (and ID them) by clicking on them with the mouse. All you'll see with the LOS tool is the appropriate unit symbol and "Friendly Infantry Squad" or whatever, with no further identifying data.

Generic low visibility unit symbols or "sounds" commands won't differentiate between friend and foe, so you have the possibility of "blue on blue" area fire incidents.

(d) Location labels are disabled. You need to rely on things like hill shapes to navigate and estimate your position relative to other units. Better yet, only HQ, crack/elite infantry and vehicles would be able to see the compass, so at night, your units would REALLY be in the dark.

(e) To further sort out the "Iron Men" from the "Plodders", you could also place a time limit on the length of the orders phase to limit your ability to piece together your overall situation by tabbing through units repeatedly for hours each turn. The CO would still be able to view the movie as many times as (s)he wanted to provide the strategic perspective, but you'd have a max of, say, 30 seconds per green unit, 45 per regular, etc. (playtesting will determine the right durations). If you took longer with one unit, it'd be at the expense of the others.

As suggested by ATW and LTCW above, these rules would change the tactics in the game to a far more realistic and dramatic, seat-of-the-pants, keep-it-simple-stupid basis, complete with patrols lost in the woods, blue on blue fire and other issues.

All the above would be readily programmable within the CM1 engine (and presumably within CM2 as well).

Sorry about the ASL rulebook length post here, but I've used the above rules for some time while playing the computer and it's been very satisfying and challenging for me.

[LongLeftFlank]

.... A little hint here, when playing Iron Man rules, popping smoke becomes a VERY useful way of marking a location for all to see.

[GSX]

Pants idea from a person that I have come to respect here.

read this

ITS A GAME!

[dan/california]

I think it would be fantastic to have realistic foog of war as long as units have the abosoulte minimum AI sense to duck take cover and shoot back. Units behaving in a really suicidal and unreasonable way would take the fun out of it pretty quick. But otherwise the Syrian player starting the scenario with good intel and the americans having the benefit of better command and control would be great.

The pucker factor really picks up when you tell a unit to do something with no idea of what is on the other side of that wall. Greatly improves the importance of doing everything right with smoke as well, as partially mentioned above. Again as said above, real world tactics were invented to deal with real world command and control problems. So if you want real world tactics....

[Peter Cairns]

I'd stress that i only ever wanted this as an option as some people would like it.

The problem with restricting it to ground level view for all, is that you loose to much situation awareness. The ability to see from a higher level is a way to simulate the combination of looking at a map and having multiple eyes and ears out there.

In CMx1 you probably have to much information, but relative spotting and real time with command delays should help with that. However, just as flight sims, even the best of them, don't give you the same feel as being in a real aircraft, looking at a screen isn't really like being there with people around you many with experience and being able to recall where you have been or places you remember.

I'd like the option to restrict the views available depending on Rank, C3 and suppression etc (You can't overview the whole battlefield, when you are being targeted by a 155mm battery).

Peter.

[LongLeftFlank]

Agreed -- it should be an option only. IMHO, level restrictions are best suited to infantry close assaults in close terrain: MOUT, forests, or night actions. I haven't had good results with AFV-focused scenarios.

[Battlefront.com]

Yes, this is a good idea as an option. Don't think we haven't already thought about it and exactly how to do it Problem is that to do it RIGHT we basically have to make a game within a game. Can do, just not all in one bite.

We think something like this is critically important for CoPlay when you WILL be playing a single character in some cases.

Steve

[Peter Cairns]

Steve,

given that the CMx2 engine is scalable, your comment could be taken as there being a scale below CM:SF. Up to now I and others have focused on larger scales, with up to 1:10 representation for brigade style combat with 120m grid instead of 8m.

However is it a possibility that we could have a 1m grid and individual control with players as team leaders as opposed to platoon leaders.

Peter.

[Battlefront.com]

Scale would be the same, but you would be "nailed" to an individual (or perhaps several individual) figures. CM is designed to be a higher level game than a first person shooter, so we'll want to use the 16 or so player slots per side for higher command positions. We're planning on Platoon Leader being the lowest level. But yeah, in theory we could allow control of a single Team per player. It's just highly unlikely we will do that.

Steve

[kipanderson]

Steve,

MadMinute Games http://www.madminutegames.com/ ,with their Civil War series, do something similar very successfully.

One can lock the camera to stay within 100m, 200m or whatever from a given commander/unit/character on the battlefield. Equally one can also set the camera to stay within 10m or 20m height from the given character. It is a very simple but very effect way of modelling the chaos of battle. It makes the battlefield far more dangerous in that one is reacting to events rather than controlling them… or seemingly so.

On a modern or WWII battlefield, when playing small games, locking the camera to within 10m height and 100m distance from a platoon commander, when combined with real-time rather than WEGO, would add a very new and exciting way to play. This one devise of restricting the travel of the camera adds hugely, and realisticly, to the chaos of war which is what we are all after.

The option to restrict where the camera could move from a given unit “may” be quite a simple feature to add. If that is the case do not hold back in Bull Run it works superbly.

Looking forward to CMSF,

All the best,

Kip.

PS. For those who do not know… try Bull Run by Madminute Games http://www.madminutegames.com/ … does for the American Civil War what CMX1 did for WWII. Next to Battlefront; MadMinute are the best wargames company out there… in my very prejudice view .

[Severin]

I like the idea that if your CO gets popped the mission you are fighting is immediatly over. And/or a big hit to you final score similar to the idea of your character being relieved for pussying out of a mission. What was the quote?:

"Well, Col. me and the boys have been talking and we'd really rather not take that town. We're all kinda tired."

[Cpl Steiner]

Originally posted by kipanderson:

The option to restrict where the camera could move from a given unit “may” be quite a simple feature to add. If that is the case do not hold back in Bull Run it works superbly.

In "Bull Run" though, the AI controls many of the friendly units. For instance, you can be a brigade commander within an army, with all other brigade commanders plus the higher up division, corp and army commanders controlled by the AI. Essentially this is equivalent to the proposed CMx2 Co-op play, but with AI "bots" taking the place of many of the player slots.

If AI control of player slots in Co-op play was a possibility this would be very cool, like in "Bull Run", but if you have to jump around from viewpoint to viewpoint it might just get irritating. My personal opinion anyway.

Having said that, as you say, if it's no big deal to add, why not have it as an option?

[Battlefront.com]

Restricting camera view is easy enough to do, for sure. However, it really is a small step towards what we are talking about doing. Will we have this as some sort of advanced player option prior to CoPlay? Dunno. It is something we have on our list (yeah, we've read the Iron Man rules for CM ).

What will likely happen when we get to CoPlay is that when your "character" is eliminated you get moved to the next in command of that formation. This way you, the player, can stay in the game, but not without some sort of penalty. For example, if you are playing the Platoon Leader and you are in your command vehicle when it gets scattered all over the battlefield, sure you might switch over to the Platoon SGT "character" but that guy might not have access to all the fancy equipment your previous "character" had. So you are still in command of your platoon, but with reduced effectiveness. That sort of thing.

Steve

[Peter Cairns]

Steve,

That could be quite harsh if it's not really your fault, like getting hit by off target artillery fire. having said that i quite like the idea of your level of control being limited by your rank, experience and position on the battlefield.

In addition, I think depending on troop type and incoming fire etc, there should be a command delay before you take over, where you have to sit and watch as the AI takes over until the chain of command is re-established and you get back in the game.

If we are talking about the AI being able to take slots in a Co-Play game, then it should be possible for it to take temporary control (as well as AFKB). In addition the same option should allow scenario designers to do AI V AI testing.

all this sounds really good .

Peter.