Some questions ...

[thewood]

But I think that you are talking abstraction again. Abstracting the shape of a tank in a flight sim only hurts the immersion factor, not the outcome of a battle.

Also, this isn't about urban combat. How many battles from Napolean to Iraq were fought over one small farmhouse. They fought not so they could hide behind it. It was fought because the house was the best terrain to fight from. We are both from Maine and I have to ask you how many times you have walked through the woods and stumbled on an old building that would have been great anchor points to a defensive line. Buildings matter more in the rural environs because they dominate the landscape and are the ususally the best cover around.

Think about some of the old farm houses sitting on hills in Dexter. If you were looking for cover, would you take your platoon to the hill and sit in the open even if you couldn't get in to the building? The answer is probably no. While you could hide behind the building, you would probably head for the woods to be in cover.

This will cause a lot of unrealistic behavior when it comes to selecting places to set up defences. btw, hills are hard to simulate too, so why do them? The answer is they tend to dominate the terrain and entire battles are fought around them. Why simulate individual trees, grass, clouds, sun, etc, when they are abstracted enough to not matter? Buildings as individual objects are critical to even the most rural battles at the tactical-level.

[MeatEtr]

So basically in a nutshell, buildings serve no purpose tactically at all? Their just there to get blown up and block LOS? Couldn't occupying a building be limited/simplified by only allowing certain types of infantry to enter like snipers, FOs, tankhunters, flamethrowers, etc. Just seems a little odd to have buildings there just for eye candy, especially in a ground combat simulator. This omission is the only thing that's bugging me about the game.

[Madmatt]

Just to clarify, *some* of the buildings have modeled interiors where you can see the inside of the walls etc. Obviously, some of the smaller ones do not (like doghouses, yes there are doghouse and you can crush them too). This looks really cool too when a HE round blows a huge hole in the side of a building and you can see debris piled up inside the room.

The developers have said already that building occupation is possible with the engine but for playability and presentation issues, they choose not to include it at this time.

And lets be honest here, while the CMx1 engine does allow you to occupy buildings, we were really never totally pleased with how it works and was one thing we are working hard to improve in the CMx2 game engine.

Now, while occupying buildings isnt modeled, there are a great many defensive positions that are allowed. There are different types and sizes of trench works, pillboxes, sandbagged firing positions, camoflagoued netting and more. I think you will find that finding good defensive positions is not a problem.

Just like CM forced people to change how they play a wargame, I think you will find ToW requires the same.

Right now everyone is in CM-MindMode (I should trademark that), and understandably will be comparing ToW to CM, and we can't blame you since thats your background. But ToW isn't CM, and it handles things in a different way.

Until a demo is out though, all we can do is try and answer questions as best we can, and show you screenshots and videos to help illustrate these points.

Madmatt

[ July 28, 2006, 11:55 AM: Message edited by: Madmatt ]

[Dirtweasle]

Since the game is based off a flight sim I can imagine that entering buildings is something rather odd for the system / engine to handle. How many planes fly through farmhouses?

Not sure - don't think I saw this question already but may have missed it - just wondering could a person change buildings to rubble across the board in a prebult scenario? So you have instead of a barn or a farm house a chunk of rubble to use as cover / concealment? Troops can use rubble, yes?

[thewood]

I'm not saying that you can't find good defensive positions. I am just a little taken aback that for all the detail talked about in the game, buildings are severly abstracted. If you told me that clouds, trees, roads, grass, barbed wire, crushing grunts, etc. was abstracted, I would competely understand

This has nothing to do with CM. I was referencing history as to what drives battle locations and the misconception that buildings are an urban phenomenon and play little role in battles outside cities.

[Battlefront.com]

thewood,

But I think that you are talking abstraction again. Abstracting the shape of a tank in a flight sim only hurts the immersion factor, not the outcome of a battle.

Not necessarily. Many flight sims have NO simulation of the ground other than something that you hit if you fly to low. Just a grossly stretched BMP, that's it. Often with next to no terrain contours either. That precludes AAA simulation, for example. I don't see that as being any different than buildings.

Also, this isn't about urban combat. How many battles from Napolean to Iraq were fought over one small farmhouse. They fought not so they could hide behind it. It was fought because the house was the best terrain to fight from. We are both from Maine and I have to ask you how many times you have walked through the woods and stumbled on an old building that would have been great anchor points to a defensive line. Buildings matter more in the rural environs because they dominate the landscape and are the ususally the best cover around.

Actually, truth is I am From Away, but I'll take the compliment just the same

This will cause a lot of unrealistic behavior when it comes to selecting places to set up defences. btw, hills are hard to simulate too, so why do them? The answer is they tend to dominate the terrain and entire battles are fought around them. Why simulate individual trees, grass, clouds, sun, etc, when they are abstracted enough to not matter? Buildings as individual objects are critical to even the most rural battles at the tactical-level.

I agree that it would be better to have infantry in buildings than not, but I don't agree that it unravels the realism. Again, it is all about choices. Every game, and CMx1 was no different, has to sacrifice something for one or more reasons. Actually, a lot of somethings for a lot of reasons.

Now, if I were the designer of ToW would I have emphasized buildings? If I had the same design goals as 1C when they made the game, no... I would not put buildings ahead of other features. CMx2, on the other hand, has a different emphasis. In fact, urban warfare is a central part of it. So we've sacrificed other things in order to make this happen. Overall CMx2 will no more be "perfect" than ToW is.

MeatEtr,

This omission is the only thing that's bugging me about the game.

When you get a chance to play you might not think so

Steve

[Madmatt]

Good question and I honestly don't know yet. I have been stealthily going through the game myself to find out just what can be moded and what can't but haven't messed with buildings yet.

It does appear that some static objects (for example a dead vehicle) can be placed manually (by editing the scenario files) but I will have to dig deeper and see what I can find.

By the way, don't take my Ninja-like efforts as a reflection of hesistency on the developers to support modding. Not at all (they realize like we do how big modding support can be for a game), I just don't want to waste their time answering my dumb questions when I figure with enough time I can figure out a lot of this stuff myself... Besides, sometimes reading their English answers to my technical questions hurts my head.

Madmatt

[hellfish]

First of all, this is excellent news. TOW and BFC will go hand in hand, IMHO, and hopefully will introduce new gamers to both genres.

Some questions:

1. Can the engine support large towns or cities - even if the buildings aren't accessible? I think it might be fun to play in downtown Aachen, for example.

2. How big are the maps, on average? I don't remember seeing that mentioned anywhere.

3. Can anybody automatically crew anything? I read Matt's little story in the ACG article about how the AT gunner got into the KV. Can anybody jump into that KV? Is there any accounting for training - i.e. that AT gunner may have never even driven a car before, let alone a tank. I'm not saying its a good thing or a bad thing, just something I'm curious about.

4. How to the campaigns work? I mean is it a set number of battles in each campaign that follow a linear storyline with linear forces? Or is it a little more loose and dynamic, so that every time I play the French campaign it'll be new?

5. I didn't notice anything about the players in multiplay. How many max?

i'm sure i'll have more questions as I have more time to digest this news on my vacation...

[Mike Summers]

Another question regarding campaigns and some of the screenshots: do individual units/soldiers "level up" between battles? I seem to have seen something like "experience points" in one of the screenies and possible a method of applying those XP's to different skills. This would be more in line with a typical RTS (units gaining experience and/or skills as the game progresses)...are these assumptions correct?

[hoolaman]

Originally posted by Madmatt:

Right now everyone is in CM-MindMode (I should trademark that), and understandably will be comparing ToW to CM, and we can't blame you since thats your background. But ToW isn't CM, and it handles things in a different way.

Until a demo is out though, all we can do is try and answer questions as best we can, and show you screenshots and videos to help illustrate these points.

Madmatt

I for one think the game will be great fun and a big succcess as I said earlier. All the same I am more in "Close-Combat mind mode" about this one, and I expect a lot of the new faces showing up on the boards to ask about this game will be CC fans, not CM.

One of the best aspects of CC was the various unique buildings of different levels, and the way the squad dispersed themselves along the walls. An "original" system heavily influenced ;)by the CC system would be great.

[John Kettler]

Steve,

For a sense of how NOT to implement movement and combat through a building, just fire up an X Box and play Red Dead Revolver in the underground mine as a QB. When emerging from tunnels into the main area, you not only tend to get hung up, but you can't see to shoot! In fact, all you see is tunnel. Meanwhile, you're bleeding to death! And did I mention that some of the buildings have no exits going to the ground floor? If you spawn in one of these you have to go to the balcony and jump off! Am sure you'll spare us such nightmares!

Regards,

John Kettler

[Lt Bull]

Originally posted by Madmatt:

The developers have said already that building occupation is possible with the engine but for playability and presentation issues, they choose not to include it at this time.

:eek: :confused: Don't tell me that! Did they not know how CM handled it?

Originally posted by MeatEtr:

So basically in a nutshell, buildings serve no purpose tactically at all? Their just there to get blown up and block LOS? Couldn't occupying a building be limited/simplified by only allowing certain types of infantry to enter like snipers, FOs, tankhunters, flamethrowers, etc. Just seems a little odd to have buildings there just for eye candy, especially in a ground combat simulator. This omission is the only thing that's bugging me about the game.

Totally agree. I too am taken aback by this. Defending/hiding from within buldings seems like such a fundamental part of WW2 (urban) combat (Stalingrad, Arnhem etc). To omitt it from a game like this must have taken some balls. I can't see how urban/street fighting can properly be modelled without it.

Originally posted by Madmatt:

And lets be honest here, while the CMx1 engine does allow you to occupy buildings, we were really never totally pleased with how it works and was one thing we are working hard to improve in the CMx2 game engine.

:confused: Are you kidding? I think it is an excellent abstraction that adequately allows units to defend from within single/double storey buildings. It does the job. Infantry get the cover/concealment (and LOS if 2 storey) benefits/bonuses from being IN the building. Could we really expect more? So in ToW we just need to make do with the open terrain AROUND the buildings and never gain any benefits from being in them? Seems very odd.

Lt Bull

[Moon]

Originally posted by thewood:

But I think that you are talking abstraction again. Abstracting the shape of a tank in a flight sim only hurts the immersion factor, not the outcome of a battle.

Also, this isn't about urban combat. How many battles from Napolean to Iraq were fought over one small farmhouse. They fought not so they could hide behind it. It was fought because the house was the best terrain to fight from. We are both from Maine and I have to ask you how many times you have walked through the woods and stumbled on an old building that would have been great anchor points to a defensive line. Buildings matter more in the rural environs because they dominate the landscape and are the ususally the best cover around.

Think about some of the old farm houses sitting on hills in Dexter. If you were looking for cover, would you take your platoon to the hill and sit in the open even if you couldn't get in to the building? The answer is probably no. While you could hide behind the building, you would probably head for the woods to be in cover.

This will cause a lot of unrealistic behavior when it comes to selecting places to set up defences. btw, hills are hard to simulate too, so why do them? The answer is they tend to dominate the terrain and entire battles are fought around them. Why simulate individual trees, grass, clouds, sun, etc, when they are abstracted enough to not matter? Buildings as individual objects are critical to even the most rural battles at the tactical-level.

If you set up your defenses of a lone farmhouse by putting your soldiers into that house, then I wish you good luck with that

You guys are blowing this way out of proportion.

First of all, there are no large urban battles in the game. So arguing that you cannot simulate them without having troops in buildings is pretty much moot.

Secondly, fighting in a built-up area like a village is still very much possible, and feels realistic. While you cannot place soldiers inside buildings, their behaviour is very authentic as a whole - using walls, trees, brush, house corners, debris etc. for cover. Keep in mind that the surroundings are MUCH more detailed than in the CM games. You won't miss the insides of buildings at all.

Martin

[thewood]

Moon, I thought people at BFC would know enough of what I was saying about a defensive line to understand that I didn't cram all my people into one building. In a rural environment, the building becomes the anchor or a line. Place a screen out front. Have a heavy weapon and observer in the building. Other infantry place as to cover approaches to building. I hope your not saying that it is better to be in the open or behind a wall than in a house during the battle. Where is the first place soldiers run to during a battle...a building.

As I said in an earlier post, I have no problem with anyone saying that with a high-end graphics engine, we just couldn't get infantry in buildings. I'm not happy about it and will probably hold off on purchase because it is the kind abstraction I can't play with. On the other hand, I think its kind strange to try to rationalize it as not an important part of any battle, regardless of how infantry handle other terrain.

[Melnibone]

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawn.

[Moon]

thewood, you said "It was fought because the house was the best terrain to fight from." I tried to explain that this is not the case. Defending "a house" or even a small village is best done NOT from within the houses, especially if the enemy has tanks. Yes, I would prefer to be in the open in a trench or behind a wall than in a building during an enemy attack. ESPECIALLY if it was the only building in the area

Please understand that I am not trying to convince anybody that fighting from within houses didn't take place or is not important etc. You should know us better than that. It sure would be nice if it was possible to do, and it sure happened during WW2. It is a game limitation and it is not realistic. There I said it, feel free to quote me.

But, and this is key: the game does not feature large urban battles. Simple as that. We can continue discussing tactics and how important buildings are in the general scheme of things, but it won't change the fact that the missions and maps in the game contain buildings which are only secondary to the outcome of the battle. Lt Bull said it above - you cannot properly simulate Stalingrad etc. without being able to enter buildings. Yup, he's right! And guess what - TOW does not simulate Stalingrad!

Therefore, when you play the game, this limitation does not really feel restrictive in any way, or the battles any less realistic. There can be very nitty-gritty close combat going on in a village, and maybe it's the excellent visuals and the destructible houses, walls and other details and the great AI, but it still simply feels right.

A bit hard to explain I guess with just words, and maybe in the next days we can show some AARs or videos which will make it more clear.

Let me repeat therefore what I said above: you guys are blowing this out of proportion. To repeat and rephrase what I said in the thread about engagement ranges - long range armor modelling is not important in a game which focusses on short to medium range battles. Likewise, modelling combat inside and from within buildings is not as important for a game which features largely rural maps with a few villages. Sometimes these villages are even the objective of the entire mission, but the main line of defense is usually located well ahead (or sometimes well behind) the buildings in such cases.

By the way, as was explained elsewhere, the problem is not the "high end graphics engine". That engine is already simulating interiors to some extent, and would easily be capable of simulating combat there. The problem are GUI and camera control issues.

The work involved is not trivial. We know because we had to work long and hard to find a solution for CM. By the way, that solution works well for CM because CM generally abstracts these issues, but it would not work at all in TOW as it would be a major break with immersion if you had transparent buildings for example.

Anyway, the good news is that the engine is easily capable to handle this, and I am willing to bet that it will be added before long. Nikolay already hinted at plans for an add-on, and I personally wouldn't mind to see a "famous city fights" pack myself

Martin

[sebastian]

Originally posted by Madmatt:

The developers have said already that building occupation is possible with the engine but for playability and presentation issues, they choose not to include it at this time.

"Playability and presentation issues" means they cannot make it look good. It is sad that features important for gamplay are dropped, because it is more important that games look realistic, than that they play realistic.

Especially the step to 3D graphics forced the gameplay to be simplified in many games, because it is more difficult to display some things in 3D: Compared to the 2D Close Combat, the 3D-successors (GIC, EYSA) already dropped multi storey buildings. Now ToW even drops entering buildings.

This is what I like about CM and its abstracted graphics. Even if it looks stupid when the soilders fly up the invisible stairs, it is important for the gamplay.

[Battlefront.com]

Building usage in CMx1 was too easy and felt necessary since the rest of the terrain was not very detailed due to the hardware limitations. Sure, we abstractly simulated varried terrain, but when a gamer sees a big patch of green and a little house he thinks "the little house is my only cover", when in fact it is often his WORST cover. Good CMers figured this out and actually, in general, avoided using lone houses sitting out in the obvious open.

In villages we should have implemented some sort of delay to enter buildings, and of course doors/windows. Because we did not it was too quick and easy to take up a position in a house and you were always going to get LOS out of it in any direction for fairly large numbers of soldiers. In real life this is not always, or even often, the case.

Take what I just said and multiply it by 10 for large, dense, urban areas like cities or built up towns. In real life it can take a 1/2 an hour to clear a single block of a single street. Limited entrance/egress and firing angles are a major reason for that. CMx1 wasn't able to simulate that.

Yes, CMx1's treatment of buildings was way more accurate than the games that came before it, but it was a pretty big abstraction. ToW also has abstraction here, but in a different way. Because there are no attempts at making ToW into an urban warfare simulator I don't see a significant problem with how they have handled things. You guys are simply making a mountain out of a molehill.

Now... in contrast to ToW, CMx2 is a simulator of urban terrain. Therefore, the buildings in CMx2 are highly detailed and far less abstracted than CMx1. The detailing fixes most of the problems found in CMx1 and therefore you will almost certainly have to relearn how to use buildings when you get a hold of CMx2. And believe me when I say that we had to scratch many things off our development "wish list" to make this happen. ToW has many of those things because they didn't spend their time friggin around with buildings and their related issues.

Steve

[ July 29, 2006, 09:06 AM: Message edited by: Battlefront.com ]

[Darren J Pierson]

It isn't a mountain out of a molehill if urban combat is important to a player. Of course, if urban combat is that critical to the player then ToW should be a pass, correct? Customers need to judge a game by what it is, not what the customer thinks it should be.

Personally some of my fondest memories from CC were firefights in buildings where it went room to room. ToW I'm sure will present other "fondest memories" in the future for those who accept it as it is.

[RSColonel_131st]

Since a large part of realistic WW2 infantry tactics focuses on defending and entering a line of buildings - even a small rural village - I can't see how this game claims to be somewhat realistic but manages to throw this away.

It's not very immersive if you need to place your guys in the open fields between two houses when those houses would offer much better cover against small-arms fire, or would offer much better LOS.

Sorry guys, but the more details you tell us, the more it sounds like this is still mainly a "clickfest RTS" and only secondary a very tactical game. That's okay - but please don't go "wow, the graphics are so cool, you won't mind if it's not realistic" - because slowly that how the sales pitch starts to sound, and I didn't think Battlefront was like that.

[ July 29, 2006, 10:19 AM: Message edited by: RSColonel_131st ]

[Tarquelne]

Originally posted by fytinghellfish:

TOW and BFC will go hand in hand,

I feel a song coming on!

[Tarquelne]

Originally posted by RSColonel_131st:

[QB] Since a large part of realistic WW2 infantry tactics focuses on defending and entering a line of buildings - even a small rural village - I can't see how this game claims to be somewhat realistic but manages to throw this away.

It'd have to be qualified realism. Like, "But not with buildings." It'll be interesting to see how large a role buildings play on the included maps. The first iteration of CM had some pretty serious gaps too. Nothing that required such circumvention, but I've played plenty of CM games that didn't involve buildings.

"clickfest RTS"

I think it's WAY too early to judge that. Given past RTS games the burden of proof may be on BFC, but so far I think all we know is that the game won't be as detailed as CM in many ways. But I think there's still a long way to go before TOW is demonstrated to be a "clickfest."

I think the most important factors to watch are the AI, the # of units, the game's pace and to a lesser extent damage/weapon modeling. I think those are what have to go wrong to make the game a clickfest.

[ July 29, 2006, 10:54 AM: Message edited by: Tarquelne ]

[Jussi Köhler]

Originally posted by RSColonel_131st:

Since a large part of realistic WW2 infantry tactics focuses on defending and entering a line of buildings - even a small rural village - I can't see how this game claims to be somewhat realistic but manages to throw this away.

It's not very immersive if you need to place your guys in the open fields between two houses when those houses would offer much better cover against small-arms fire, or would offer much better LOS.

Sorry guys, but the more details you tell us, the more it sounds like this is still mainly a "clickfest RTS" and only secondary a very tactical game. That's okay - but please don't go "wow, the graphics are so cool, you won't mind if it's not realistic" - because slowly that how the sales pitch starts to sound, and I didn't think Battlefront was like that.

Unfortunately my opinion echoes yours completely. The more I hear about all the "realistic" features the less I expect of the game. Its not very promising yet. Remembering all the hype with T-72 and what a huge let-down that was I can see it all coming again... Exactly the same sales-speach from Matt at that time...

[RMC]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

Is ToW the be-all-end-all game for the most serious wargamer? No. Is is close enough for the serious wargamer to be thrilled with it? You bet.

Steve

So when did you graduate from the Donald Rumsfeld school of public speaking?

[RMC]

Originally posted by Tarquelne:

I think it's WAY too early to judge that. Given past RTS games the burden of proof may be on BFC, but so far I think all we know is that the game won't be as detailed as CM in many ways. But I think there's still a long way to go before TOW is demonstrated to be a "clickfest."

We alread know that the infantry is modeled in much more detail than in CM. I'm happy.

Clickfest is a cop out word. You rant realism, deal with time pressure like a real commander.