Editable Saved Games, and why they matter ;).

[kipanderson]

Hi,

I am one of the lucky ones who find all the announced features for CMX2 exactly what I hoped for . But no need for me to advertise CMX2 here… .

However… I want more there is one feature I am particularly after to allow CMX2 to be used to its full potential. The ability to fully edit Saved Games. This one matters, a lot… .

CMX1, let alone CMX2, modelled the contact battles themselves to a standard not seen before or since. No other game out there comes even close to CMX1, six years after it first appeared. This in turn quickly led to some wishing to use CM to play full operational games modelled in turn on the way the military handle Command Post Exercises but with CM used in place of dice to decide the outcome of contact battles. CMMC1 was a huge success, way more successful than I though it would be. But the undoubted success of CMMC1 was only possible due to the willingness of the umpires to put in unsustainable numbers of hours. The excitement of CM drove the umpires on and all ended happily. However, when CMMC2 came along the hours required from umpires proved too much and things foundered, in part anyway.

The single feature that would do most to reduce the number of hours required from umpires in fully modelled Command Post Exercise/operational games is the ability to fully edit Saved Games There are many features that would help, but the single most important is the ability to edit Saved games. In many ways this is the “tipping point” that would make large operational games possible where they are not possible currently with CMX1 due to the workload on umpires.

CM is so good, so high in the quality of its simulation, that it is a shame the workload is so heavy, too heavy, to use CM for large scale operational games. Being able to fully edit Saved games would make doable, what is not doable currently with CM.

All good fun,

All the best,

Kip.

PS. CMC looks like a great game but will not address the problem. We need the flexibility to build our own operational games with the latest title, in our own way. The ability to edit Saved games would allow this. In my very prejudiced view .

[Michael Emrys]

Help me out here a bit, would you, Kip? What aspects of a saved game would you want to be editable? And are you speaking of a completed game, or a game saved on an intermediate turn, or both? Finally, how do you see that helping umpires?

All this may be blindingly obvious to the cognoscenti, but I have no experience with CMMC so I am in the dark on this.

Michael

[Dschugaschwili]

So I could take a PBEM game during the orders phase, save it, open the savegame in an editor and screw around with my and the opponent's troops, load the savegame in CM and continue playing. Great.

Limited to savegames of finished games and protected by both players' passwords it may be ok, but there may still be side effects that could diminish the security of the file format.

Dschugaschwili

[ScouseJedi]

Why not have an option - export save game in open txt format.

Then you would normally have a secure file but in special situationswhen required you would also have access to the relevant data.

Of course a text output would be greatly beneficial to anyone trying to hack the save format.

[kipanderson]

More on editable saved games.

Hi,

If I could just start with the concerns relating to actually editing a saved game and cheating and such. These are very valid concerns but of course, I have assumed that the designer of any game could password protect it and so only those authorised to could edit it.

Michael I think the only way for me to answer your question is to briefly, well as briefly as possible , describe the outlines of how these large Command Post Exercise/CMMC/operational games work. Much of it you will have guessed anyway…. but here goes.

You start with a chunk of topographic map, say 1:50,000, of the Ukraine… 60km by 60km will do very nicely. On the map you plot and move mainly battalion combat teams but also some smaller units. You have a Soviet army of roughly six divisions against a German corps of three divisions both with all supporting artillery, engineers and such.

On each side you have teams of around thirty players. Army and corps commanders, divisional commanders and then battalion combat team commanders. The battalion combat team commanders fight the actual CMBB battles, the contact battles. The German corps and Soviet army commanders issue orders to their divisional commanders who then issue orders to the battalion combat team commanders. The battalion combat team commanders then write up orders for their battalions but send these orders to the game umpires. Discussion within each side is by forum.

The umpires read all the orders from both sides and move the battalions combat teams in accordance on the topographical map. Often the orders will result in contact battles, one side attacking an enemy held village, combats teams from each side moving as a result of their respective orders and then bumping into each other…. and so on. When there is a battle the umpires build the CM games, protect them with passwords, and send them off to the respective players/battalion combat team commanders from each side. When the players have finished the battle they save it and send it back to the umpires. Now… this is when the ability to edit saved games would help so much.

It will normally be the case that the engagement does not have a clean ending, as in the real world. That one side has simply retreated one or two km or that the attacker reinforces for another attack on the same objective. Currently it is not possible to edit saved games so the umpires have to build each battle again from scratch. If saved games could be edited the umpires could reinforce according to the new orders, tweak the map by adding a section, i.e. effectively “move the battle” over the topographical map to a slightly different centre point, and send the new battle off to the required players.

The above may not sound like much given all the other features that would help, but believe me; I know form experience and the ability to edit saved games would help hugely. It would make possible what is near impossible now due to work load.

It need not be in such vast operations as described above but also in smaller division v division sized games. With others I have built and umpired a few of these over gaming weekends when groups of us get together for “weekends of mass slaughter” and play out an operation in a series of face to face games .

There are many features that would help, if one lists them all you would end with a larger version of CMC. The importance of the ability to edit saved games is that it would give CMX2 players the flexibility to build their own operations with the current title on any thing from the corps v army scale down to regiment v regiment. It is in many ways a “tipping point” or “tipping feature” in making such games possible. Without such a feature the time required from umpires is often overwhelming and kills the enterprise.

All good fun ,

All the best,

Kip.

[ February 09, 2006, 11:02 AM: Message edited by: kipanderson ]

[kipanderson]

Hi,

The lack of response from Steve no doubt means “no… you will not be able to edit saved games” .

However… always the optimist with CM I still hope it is a feature that will turn up at some stage in the life of CMX2. It is the single feature most helpful to those wishing to do more with CM than just fight head to head battles.

Huge fun that such battles are, CM is such a high quality simulation it seems a waste not to attempt to build round it equally high quality operational games from regiment v regiment to corps v army scale. But to do this the umpires need just a little help to lessen their workload or they get swamped.

CMMC1 was the proof that it is a worthwhile endeavour.

All good fun,

All the best,

Kip.