The road ahead... a recap

[The Tanklord]

Steve,

The Tanklord,

A thoughtful, strong, and constructive counter post. Just what I like and what I so rarely get when talking about something like this.

I hope we can continue with it!

I hope so too, discussing stuff like this with a gamedev is a treat. (No matter how stubborn said gamedev might be )

That's exactly what I meant when I said "We predicted that years ago, as we've discussed many times before. The people most bothered by it

are the ones who left, which makes sense." I made that in response to your comment that "some (lots?) have left." So I guess I don't

understand your point.

I was just trying to make the point that a couple of players that changes their minds proves as much as couple of angry players leaving,

not very much. Other factors will judge your success.

No argument there with the theory. The difference is that in reality I don't believe it's very relevant to CMx2.

...

What I'm doing here is not disagreeing with your core argument, I'm just saying that in practical terms it doesn't mean much.

Sure, in theory there are nearly unlimited resources at our disposal if we go with WeGo, but in reality there are other considerations

that do indeed impose limits. The other one is...

Great, then I think we agree on the theoretic/abstract limitations, these are the ones I wanted to claim as "fact".

The practical impact, if any, is obviously more about opinions, especially from the outside where cause-effect relationships

are even harder to deduct when it comes to such a complex piece of software as CM.

(Agreeing with the point you made about pathfinding and working in complex environments and the increased possibility of "non logic" bugs)

Since I don't own the game, so I'm saying this very weak on hard facts (and the rest of my post should be seen in this light when it comes

to game specifics), but I do believe that you could design situations where the engine chokes.

If so, then it becomes a discussion about how rare/common these situations are in common scenarios and

their importance in the bigger picture.

I do agree that WeGo/Turnbased isn't magically gonna solve the problems that are hard to compute, BUT it does put the decision

about the size of the map/forces involved more in the players hands. If you felt like playing one of Runes more evil creations you could

do that, even if your computer wasn't top of the line and still get basically the same results as a faster computer, in theory atleast.

The limitation was how long you were willing to wait or when your graphics card hit the wall, both looser limits than in RT for almost

everyone.

If you have W amount of work, T amount of time and S amount of work done/time unit, if W/S > T something has to give, in a turnbased

environment it's the time constraint you loosen (up to a point, of course). Since you only have control over W and T (cut work or delay),

how do you handle this in the new engine? (I'll sign an NDA to hear I'm right )

I doubt that you have baseline W so low so that peak(W) never invalidates peak(W)/S < T (when T is in realtime).

In respect to LOS/LOF and Pathfinding, of course these are things which require every increasing amounts of computing resources to

achieve ever diminishing returns. So one can take these things so far that the computer would basically sit around for a half hour

computing nothing but LOS/LOF for a few seconds of gameplay.

Well, when it comes to pathfinding in a complex enough environment you might have to compute the whole path to find the/a solution, in

a labyrinthesque situation for example. Obviously this will be a problem in WeGo too, but the problem could be somewhat larger before

that happens.

It might also make a difference is in those games where in CMx1 the basic turns took maybe 50 seconds and

the high intensity combat/lots of complex movement turns took 1½ - 2 minutes. In RT complaints about lagging comes up fairly

quick and lagging has a (very?) negative impact on the players ability to control his forces in RT whereas 2-3 minute wait time for a turn

in the best PBEM you ever played might not disturb you as much...

[optimization]

No argument there.

Sure, to "some degree". I agree with that. Just like going with WeGo imposes tradeoffs that impact the gameplay to "some degree" as well.

yes, and if you want the intensity and other features of RT it's a rather large tradeoff to go Turnbased!

I'm only discussing this from the very narrow point of view regarding some of the computational problems that are core to a game engine and

the theoretical limitations. And, since we seem to agree about the theoretical, now more about what I believe the practical impacts are.

I do agree that the positive impact of a RT engine to gameplay for players that like RT is much larger than the negative impact of the

harsher technical constraints impacts WeGo/Turnbased.

The best example of this is in CMx1. Sometimes a shot would pass through a building and impact a unit behind it. From a physics and gameplay

standpoint, this did not put smiles on people's faces. The reason for this was that we didn't track things in RealTime within the game engine

and therefore there was no way to account for the movement of the unit after the shot was launched. Or put another way, real trajectories were

not possible because it required a degree of tracking that simply did not exist because the system was inherently based on discrete time increments

instead of continuous time.

I don't really see your point here, whats to technically stop you from doing a pure WeGo-engine have the same time-granularity as a RT-engine

"under the hood" and just have very loose deadlines for those problems that benefits from it? You still need some sort of internal game clock to

synchronize against. Something like a RT engine where you allow it to lag as needed (within before mentioned limits on WeGo) and then playback the result in 1:1 time. It should be very close to what you have now.

I do see that once you have all that stuff in place, the step to RT is rather small and probably very tempting and possibly even the right

thing to do

What I'm saying is that it isn't a tradeoff in the way you say. You're arguing that a turn based system has no cons, only pros.

Technical pros yes, I have a hard time seeing what would be better/easier to do in a RT engine or what would lead to a better

practical results with regards to the algorithmic challenges posed by a game engine.

Gameplay wise the differences are huge with many pros and cons on both sides and since you seem to be doing good, despite the (imho!)

lackluster syrian scenario it might even the right one. Although you might have inertia-sales from your earlier games both in SF and

the first WW2 game, so after that I think the real tests of the new engine/path will come. I'm crossing my fingers though, needed or not .

I'm not sure that we are completely on the same page with regards to the differences between engines, and since I'm only speculating this is

most certainly the case.

The difference from my point of view is that in RT you need to calculate and results in realtime and output it to the screen/player also in real time,

whereas in a turnbased/pre calculated/blue bar engine you can pause the simulation when you get a peak in the workload and get arguably better results.

And obviously you can only get better results when you have more work than time.

That's simply not the case. Both have cons, both have pros. We feel that, on balance, the pros of the current system (inherently

continuous time based) outweigh the pros of the old system (inherently turn based). Therefore, we didn't have to tradeoff anything

significant when the whole is examined.

No argument there, I'm just arguing for some pros for a WeGo type engine in some (small?) areas when compared to RT. I felt that a Turn Based

engine (and the CMx1 engine?) had some features/pros worth defending and maybe, just maybe, get some of these pros back in for a (far) future

release just for the WeGo/PBEM crowd.

Absolutely. I think the track record of what is in the patches since CM:SF came out really underscores our ability to deal with both of these

issues. We didn't throw out 3 years worth of coding, as some suggested we should, yet we spent many months not only fixing what was broken but

also adding in new features that people requested we put in. And for some of those things which we agree with, but are not practical right now,

we've said we'll get to them as soon as we can (committing to a timeframe for some, not for others). Since the early days we've been accused by

people of not listening to our customers... it's never been true, and never will be. What is true is that we don't listen to the customers that

would wind up putting us in the unemployment line

Yes, your support of your games is excellent and combined with the personal contact on these forums it's truly outstanding.

It goes without saying that you can't throw away 3 years of work, I'm not arguing for anything like that either.

And none of them have anything to do with the RT nature, just to point that out QBs are getting a massive overhaul and, I think, will wind up

being far superior to what was in CMx1.

Yeah, I saw that and I'm still worried . One of the very best games I have played was in a CMBO-tourney over at band of brothers that was played on maps

that posed "unrealistic" tactical challenges, buy anything you want, but no mixing branches and you got to see the map before you buy. (Perhaps some

limits on arty too) This one was a small rectangular map with a circular hill with almost no cover, a church and a large (and only) flag all in the middle.

Some mixed terrain around the hill and you had both diagonal corners to setup in, lower right and upper left for me.

It was almost a game in it self just planning what to buy and choosing a strategy.

I went with crack Fallschirmsjägers and an extremely aggressive plan, lost the game in a Draw 48-52 or something similar but the game and

everything around it was a blast.

I've had loads of fun in more historical scenarios too,for example in longer meta campaigns where losses carry over and gets replaced with green troops,

those pose another type of challenge. Anyway, I feel that the flexibility of a point system and the powerful QB generator is hard to beat and I fear

that we have lost the ability to try out the more exotic setups.

Hopefully

the bulk of this response will show you that it is a fallacy to think that you're not expressing an opinion since I've been able to disagree with

your facts with other facts.

I think we are pretty much in agreement about the major stuff and maybe I was unclear earlier, the only parts I wanted to claim as fact are

the theoretical limits/differences. And I'm certain enough that you could create an _artificial_ situation in the game where these theoretical

limitations becomes practical to some extent, I would call that one a borderline fact. By practical I mean that they show them self in the game,

not that they necessarily impacts gameplay.

Everything else, including the possible impact of claimed facts are opinions.

Hopefully not your "last words" because this has been enjoyable! I hate it when people post an opinion and then run away from the debate that

follows. It seems the more strong the opinion, the more likely that is to happen. In our case we really don't disagree much in a fundamental

sense. We simply disagree in what it actually means in reality.

Steve

No no, I'm not running away, not even if the discussion should turn "serious".

I was thinking more along the lines that the forums seems very calm and I haven't seen Matt around lately. In combination with my

"assumption" of correcting you... *Que hitman-theme*

[Battlefront.com]

Hello Tanklord,

I hope so too, discussing stuff like this with a gamedev is a treat. (No matter how stubborn said gamedev might be

It's a treat for me to have a deep discussion without the customer dismissing my well thought out, documented, counter arguments as "spin" or "wrong". Of course they never actually get to the part where they tell me where I'm wrong or counter my arguments with equally rational ones. Nope, too often I get a bunch of wind in my direction and then "cowardly" behavior after. Fortunately, most of those people eventually got tired of me calling them on it and left. Better for us, because it frees up time to have discussions with people that actually care about having them! Of course, people that agree with me are "brown nosers" and "fan bois", not intellectually independent Humans who see where we have common ground, so you might want to take a hot shower now that it's clear you're in league with the devil!

I was just trying to make the point that a couple of players that changes their minds proves as much as couple of angry players leaving, not very much. Other factors will judge your success.

Correct. The Forums here have never, ever been more than a tool for a small number of customers to interact with us, and vice versa. It can act as a barometer for general issues and to hone in on specific ones. It is not an indication of sales or overall customer satisfaction since the people that post here are a self selected group and tend to be the ones with the highest standards and the most interest in the details. The rude customers tend to be the ones that are least representative of the whole (thankfully!) and therefore, ironically, are the easiest ones to ignore/turn away without affecting overall sales and support. In fact, they often make support more difficult and turn customers away from participating here. Which is why we are very happy to see the angry ones gone and level headed ones remain. Even though, of course, they are all unthinking brown nosers such as yourself

Great, then I think we agree on the theoretic/abstract limitations, these are the ones I wanted to claim as "fact".

The practical impact, if any, is obviously more about opinions, especially from the outside where cause-effect relationships

are even harder to deduct when it comes to such a complex piece of software as CM.

Yup!

Since I don't own the game, so I'm saying this very weak on hard facts (and the rest of my post should be seen in this light when it comes to game specifics), but I do believe that you could design situations where the engine chokes.

If so, then it becomes a discussion about how rare/common these situations are in common scenarios and their importance in the bigger picture.

Exactly. From a simulation standpoint CMx2 does far more and in far greater detail than CMx1 did. And yet it does it in RealTime. For us, there is a point of diminishing returns to expanding the fidelity of the simulation at the expense of non-simulation centric elements. Many disappointed CMx1ers will agree with that, since time spent on making the high fidelity simulation detracted from the ability to also deliver some of the non-simulation related features they expected. And therefore, we're focusing most of our time in the near future to improving the "game" elements and less time doing the "simulation" stuff because, by and large, the simulation is where it needs to be. And as computers get more powerful the technical issues some people have with things like lag will go away, just as they did with CMx1. Multi battalion battles were absolutely not practical for CMBO in 1999 when the engine was largely complete, but a few years after people were indeed playing such massive battles. Why? Beats the Hell out of me, but a tiny number of people did so.

I do agree that WeGo/Turnbased isn't magically gonna solve the problems that are hard to compute, BUT it does put the decision about the size of the map/forces involved more in the players hands. If you felt like playing one of Runes more evil creations you could do that, even if your computer wasn't top of the line and still get basically the same results as a faster computer, in theory atleast.

Correct about the theory. A better way of phrasing it, though, is to say that it increases the flexibility about how big things can be. Map size and unit density have upper limitations for a specific computer configuration with or without precalculations. That massive Rune scenario I mentioned was unplayable on my system even if I was patient enough to sit through a 20 minute turn compile (and I wasn't ). The framerate, even though all the results were precomputed, was a slideshow. And here's the thing...

Practically speaking such a massive thing would probably have been "better" if the game were RealTime. By that I mean you would have had a crappy, unplayable slideshow without the 20 minute wait to find out how bad the turn was going to play out.

Well, when it comes to pathfinding in a complex enough environment you might have to compute the whole path to find the/a solution, in a labyrinthesque situation for example. Obviously this will be a problem in WeGo too, but the problem could be somewhat larger before that happens.

One advantage, from a processor standpoint, is that in RealTime people tend to make far less complex paths at any given time. They also tend to move less units concurrently (which is not unrealistic in the real world). Or put more generally, WeGo offers the player the ability to optimize and micromanage the battlefield to an extent not practically possible in RealTime. This in turn encourages the player to burden a 60 second period of time with far more instructions, with far greater complexity, than for 60 seconds of RealTime. In fact, this is what WeGoer's consistently say they want to be able to do!

So IMHO WeGo and RealTime do not have the same simulation burden for an average slice of game time. This is important because precalculated aspects are fairly small proportional to the stuff that both systems require to be executed on the fly. In fact, it is possible that they don't have the same burden on the graphics subsystems either since combat in RealTime tends to be more of an ebb and flow than in WeGo. Obviously this is a gross generalization, but I think it's a fairly accurate one to make.

It might also make a difference is in those games where in CMx1 the basic turns took maybe 50 seconds and the high intensity combat/lots of complex movement turns took 1½ - 2 minutes. In RT complaints about lagging comes up fairly quick and lagging has a (very?) negative impact on the players ability to control his forces in RT whereas 2-3 minute wait time for a turn in the best PBEM you ever played might not disturb you as much...

True, though my above argument is a counter balance to this. It can be that the WeGo player selects a battle that is just below his computer's ability to handle in RealTime, but because of game related aspects causes the graphics subsystems to be stressed out in a way that wouldn't be as likely in RealTime. How likely is this? I don't know, but my experience is that people complaining about lag are just as likely to be WeGoers as they are RealTimers. This indicates that the system is more stressed out by the execution of the graphics and the physics calculations more than the stuff that can be precomputed. That was our experience with framerate in CMx1 as well, so it's not too surprising to us.

I don't really see your point here, whats to technically stop you from doing a pure WeGo-engine have the same time-granularity as a RT-engine "under the hood" and just have very loose deadlines for those problems that benefits from it? ... I do see that once you have all that stuff in place, the step to RT is rather small and probably very tempting and possibly even the right thing to do

You answered your own question very nicely Once you get the granularity down to where the physics want it to be, and people expect in terms of behaviors, then you inherently have a continuous time game engine. RealTime Mode, at that point, is just a matter of gameplay considerations, such as UI design and other non-engine specific features.

Technical pros yes, I have a hard time seeing what would be better/easier to do in a RT engine or what would lead to a better

practical results with regards to the algorithmic challenges posed by a game engine.

In theory, nothing. In reality it doesn't seem to make much difference in terms of the impact on framerate (lag). The reason for that is that the physics and graphical needs tend to overwhelm the graphic subsystems of the machine before the processor maxes out handling the simulation elements. Now, that is not to say that specific situations don't occur where WeGo would be smooth as silk and RT would be bumpy. I'm sure it is the case sometimes, though it's really impossible to compare because without very carefully controlled experimentation.

Gameplay wise the differences are huge with many pros and cons on both sides and since you seem to be doing good, despite the (imho!) lackluster syrian scenario it might even the right one.

Like any content, some people are attracted to it and others repelled. Trying to convince an Eastern Front grog that the majority of WW2 gamers do NOT like the Eastern Front is an exercise in futility, despite the sales record (not just CM!!) and logic to back it up. Telling them that I would rather play Eastern Front than anything else in the world only makes them angrier since they can't call me bigoted against the thing that they love most

The difference from my point of view is that in RT you need to calculate and results in realtime and output it to the screen/player also in real time, whereas in a turnbased/pre calculated/blue bar engine you can pause the simulation when you get a peak in the workload and get arguably better results.

In theory true, in reality I just don't see it being a problem. Again, CMx2 in RT can do so much more than CMx1 can in WeGo because the primary limitations of game design are in the design of the game itself (CMx1 was inherently abstract, CMx2 inherently not), time to take advantage of more processing power, optimizing beyond the point of diminishing returns, and most importantly the ability of the graphics sub systems and processor to handle the visual execution. As stated above, the latter is major performance bottleneck, and WeGo doesn't really help out much there.

Yes, your support of your games is excellent and combined with the personal contact on these forums it's truly outstanding.

It goes without saying that you can't throw away 3 years of work, I'm not arguing for anything like that either.

Oh, I know you personally are not. But there are still people out there who are so convinced we've taken a "fundamental" wrong turn that the only way to get back on track is to trash everything and start over again. Not only is that practically impossible (i.e. we would rather work at McDonalds than do that, so who would be left to make it?) but it is simply not necessary. The majority of issues with the engine itself have been fixed and the bulk of our customers have embraced the overall direction we're headed in. The detractors argue that isn't the case, but what do a few cranks know to trump what we know? Absolutely NOTHING. So it's a matter of refinement and that's progressing quite nicely.

Anyway, I feel that the flexibility of a point system and the powerful QB generator is hard to beat and I fear that we have lost the ability to try out the more exotic setups.

No worries. The new QB system will have the old QB's functionality in terms of customizing forces, but in a way that also preserves "realistic" force structures. It also offers some new "gamey" features that will sure to be big hits with the old QB crowd.

And I'm certain enough that you could create an _artificial_ situation in the game where these theoretical limitations becomes practical to some extent, I would call that one a borderline fact. By practical I mean that they show them self in the game,

not that they necessarily impacts gameplay.

Based on our experiences, I would say that we have about as much simulation as we need (i.e. before the point of diminishing coding returns) with the current game engine. And that those needs do not overwhelm the average computer's capabilities any more in RT than they do in WeGo.

No no, I'm not running away, not even if the discussion should turn "serious".

I was thinking more along the lines that the forums seems very calm and I haven't seen Matt around lately. In combination with my

"assumption" of correcting you... *Que hitman-theme*

Thanks for continuing the enjoyable discussion. I am sure many are benefiting from this besides you and I.

Steve

__________________

[Cid250]

One advantage, from a processor standpoint, is that in RealTime people tend to make far less complex paths at any given time. They also tend to move less units concurrently (which is not unrealistic in the real world). Or put more generally, WeGo offers the player the ability to optimize and micromanage the battlefield to an extent not practically possible in RealTime. This in turn encourages the player to burden a 60 second period of time with far more instructions, with far greater complexity, than for 60 seconds of RealTime. In fact, this is what WeGoer's consistently say they want to be able to do!

This sentence states how wrong can you be actually... "not unrealistic in the real world"???

In fact... on modern war, every squad commander, and every soldier, thinks by himself.

The name of auftragstaktik (mission-oriented tactics) doesn't sound familiar to you?.

Actually the US army has built his tactical doctrine over this concept dated much earlier than WWII, and well tested in the GREAT WAR fields from 1916 to the end... specially in itally and the easter front. Several simultaneous maneouvers, fire & moves, by several diferent units simultaneously and agressively, are "frequent" in such kind of war.

So... you have one player with only ONE brain, to simulate the actions and reactions and all the thinking involved in a battle concerning to a lot of units composed by men with his own brain and instructed to react and take his own decissions in the ongoing battle...

For a single player... to simulate the fact of multiple men thinking about what's the next move, it takes a bit more than 60 second of (single player) real time. In other words... is fair for each squad commander to have 60 seconds of real time for himself and his men, and it means that a single player need at least those 60 seconds for each squad deployed in the game to simulate "clever tactical moves" of all those units, and not "dumb" Real Time Strategy gameplay, based on a single player reacting to events instead of a lot of experienced men doing the task.

Sorry but your point against the advantages of WeGo has no possible defense.

[Battlefront.com]

Cid250,

Sorry but your point against the advantages of WeGo has no possible defense.

Er... well, if you want to read what you want to see instead of what I wrote, you're right. But since that's not what I'm saying, you're wrong

In WeGo you can come up with a plan that is extremely complex and have it INSTANTLY carried out concurrently within a second or two everywhere. And then 60 seconds later you can cancel everybody's orders when you figure out the idea wasn't so great, reissue orders to everybody, and once again start them all out concurrently without any penalty. And when you find that something isn't going right in one spot you can, within 60 seconds, correct for it by doing anything you want with any force without any regards to anything other than the effort to replot moves.

In real warfare the opposite is true. Real warfare involves a great deal of confusion, lack of coordination, hesitation, mistakes, imperfect plans being carried out imperfectly, perfect plans being carried out imperfectly, etc., etc. All of these things are mitigated, and sometimes completely counteracted, by WeGo.

Since WeGo can coordinate units in a way that is simply impossible to do in real life, then it's no small leap to conclude that WeGo is inherently unrealistic. I would be shocked, and I mean falling down surprised, to hear anybody try to say that it is otherwise. OK, not shocked because I know some people do in fact believe that WeGo isn't inherently flawed in terms of its ability to portray warfare accurately.

RealTime, on the other hand, also suffers from its fair share or realism problems. The primary one, but certainly not the only issue, is the one you raise. A single brain can only control so many things at once before the outcome is negatively effected by the practical limitations of attention and hand-eye-coordination. RealTime also, at times, suffers from the same over-control problems that WeGo has. Even within a game this can happen concurrently. For example, unrealistically optimizing an assault by 1st Platoon while 2nd Platoon accidentally sits out in the open and is hammered because the player was engrossed in 1st Platoon's action.

It is clear to anybody with even the smallest amount of understanding of warfare that both WeGo and RealTime are inherently unrealistic. Just not in the same ways or at least not in the same ways all the time.

Now, back to the point I made. What I said was this:

One advantage, from a processor standpoint, is that in RealTime people tend to make far less complex paths at any given time. They also tend to move less units concurrently (which is not unrealistic in the real world).

This is an accurate and true statement. In warfare the chances that an entire company, or even a platoon, starting to execute a complex plan on the fly perfectly and concurrently (i.e. the exact same second) is so low it shouldn't even be considered a possibility. Even in WW1 trench warfare this wasn't the case, though of course it was often more closer to it simply because individual unit initiative was almost completely absent during planned assaults. Those infamous trench assaults were, of course not on the fly either so that communications could be optimized, though at the expense of just about everything else (including surprise!).

Since the reality of warfare is that units often sit around with no instructions, or are waiting to act on instructions, it is IMHO more realistic for them to be sitting around in a RT game waiting for the player's attention rather than having every second of their existence optimized for a larger plan as is done in WeGo. Therefore, the simple fact that a RT player can only get a few units to start doing something within 10 or so seconds is not inherently unrealistic. Instead it becomes situationally dependent.

Again, I am not saying that RT is realistic and WeGo isn't. I'm saying they both are unrealistic and to different degrees depending on specific situations. Which is more fun is up to the individual player.

Steve

[Thomm]

To all who happily compare the two game modes with regard to their degrees of realism: I am very curious what your measure of realism actually is.

Unrelated, but on the road ahead: is there any forecast when - if ever - we shall see individual rooms (in buildings) in the new engine?

Best regards,

Thomm

[sfhand]

This is an accurate and true statement. In warfare the chances that an entire company, or even a platoon, starting to execute a complex plan on the fly perfectly and concurrently (i.e. the exact same second) is so low it shouldn't even be considered a possibility.

This is why I favor command delays based on multiple factors as has been much discussed around these parts...

I have no measurement for realism in the games, which leaves me to rely on suspension of disbelief which is,of course, entirely subjective. But I will say, for me, multiple units attempting to operate in a co-ordinated fashion seems much more "believalbe" than what happens when I try to control things in real time...

[Battlefront.com]

sfhand,

This is why I favor command delays based on multiple factors as has been much discussed around these parts...

It doesn't change things that much, and it has its realism issues too (as we're discussing in the other thread), however it does at least interfere with unrealistic precision control a little bit. However, in real life some units might not start moving at all, simply because they never got the message. The few seconds to a minute or so delay the Command Delay system has to offer doesn't do that. Put another way, it usually causes only mild inconvenience instead of making a particular maneuver impossible to do.

I have no measurement for realism in the games, which leaves me to rely on suspension of disbelief which is,of course, entirely subjective. But I will say, for me, multiple units attempting to operate in a co-ordinated fashion seems much more "believalbe" than what happens when I try to control things in real time...

Suspension of disbelief is a must for wargaming IMHO. It is a game after all And I agree, some people find one way more "believable" than another. It has a ton to do with personal comfortability, which is why we like having both systems to offer people.

Steve

[El Hombre]

Well if you're going to do "command delays" and you want to really push the realistic aspect, then you must simulate a full command structure.

To start with, upon launch of the battle, you get as much time as you want to plan it (that's normal, you probably do have an hour or more in real life to plan some advance), as long as you're not the ambushee in an ambush situation. In the latter case, the scenario creator decides on a countdown to start.

During that startup phase, you can assign orders to your command staff that simulate a tactical battle plan from the POV of the head dude. "platoon 1 advances towards x while platoon 2 flanks, arrive together from N and E to objective A, etc..."

Once that startup phase is done and the battle is joined, here starts the fun. You give the player in WeGo a certain amount of thinking time between the rounds, definitely not unlimited. You also define for each command you give, based on how far in the communication tree it's supposed to go, the chance and length of it being properly understood and acted upon. You also weigh in the complexity of the given command, and make sure the player can't spam commands all over, as that would be unrealistic (how many orders can a single commander give in 10 seconds?).

Then if you really want to be realistic, you then simulate being each person in the game in turn, knowing kind of what you're supposed to do based on what you are supposed to have been told over com.

etc...etc...etc....

good luck.

This is a game, where you simulate the actions (and thinking processes) of many, being played by one. That's the fundamental issue. It'll NEVER be correct, and it will always always always be totally unrealistic. Just live with it and play this very enjoyable game, basking in the positives and not bitching about "why am I a god, I shouldn't be a god."

[SgtMuhammed]

As El Hombre points out there are conflicting issues when players talk about realism in the game. If you want more realism then you have to impose massive limits on the game somewhere. What level do you realistically want to command? Company Commander? Battalion? Platoon or Squad leader? Fine, then what are you willing to give up?

The Battalion commander has very limited control once the bullets begin to fly. A realistic game as a Battalion commander would give you direct control over his command group and a limited ability to give orders to his companies. So you could then decide if you wanted to watch the battle unfold in RT or WEGO, either way your involvement would be rather limited. For the company commander you run into the same problem with your platoons although you have a bit more hands on. There though you fight the battles you are given with the tools you have at hand. No picking and choosing which assets you are going to bring to the fight, and so on down the scale. You could turn CMSF into a very realistic simulation of a single team if you were willing to severly limit the scope.

Steve is absolutely right though with regards to units being ordered about. Even in training excercises with multiple walkthroughs you still end up with guys sitting around waiting for orders. Yes everone is an individual and can do great things but no one moves on the battlefield unless told to do so. Even real commanders get fixated on single points and forget to give orders to supporting units. Flanking attacks get delayed for various reasons and units fall completely out of contact and end up god knows where. These things would be realistic if included in the game but just imagine the reaction when you give an elaborate set of orders for a broad assault into the enemy trenches and find themselves leading 30 guys while the rest of the force looks at them like they are crazy (10 points if you know where that came from).

People complain now because their units don't follow their commands to the letter, imagine if you actually gave those units a brain and they started doing what THEY thought was best. "Hell no I'm not driving out there to draw RPG fire, are you crazy?" Of course others compalin that their units are too brainless, "Why didn't they override my orders and seek shelter when they started getting shot at?" It's pretty unreasonable to expect the game to be able to guess when it is supposed to take over and when to stay out. If the AI started moving unused units on its own there might be some cheers of, "Hey, neat," but they would be drowned out by the flood of "Where the hell is my reserve platoon, I didn't tell them to go there, WTF BFC?"

As far as RT v WEGO, RT is just WEGO with variable pauses. If I want to give orders to everyone I just pause and give orders. I don't understand why people consider the pause button unrealistic but it is perfectly acceptable for the world to work in 1 minute intervals.

"In war everything is simple, but even the simplest things are hard."

[El Hombre]

What SgtMuhammed said.

One additional point: You technically don't need to "give up" any of those commands (company, batallion, platoon or squad) as long as you're properly bound by the framework of each of those commands, and when planning the actions of a squad for example, you are automatically put in the framework of a platoon commander for tactical actions, or squad commander for situational actions... then again, that's also a whole new can'o'worms.

BTW, the only reason 100% of players aren't playing RT is that there's no pause in multiplayer. Otherwise there's absolutely no reason to play WeGo (yeah I know, replay is cool but not really necessary) since, as SgTM pointed out, WeGo is RT with pauses every minute.

And therefore, as a corollary, those RT players who say WeGo sucks should be required never ever ever to be allowed to pause the game for even 1 second and see how it goes.

So once BFC implements multiplayer pause in RT and maybe some kind of last X seconds replay, WeGo becomes a special case of RT. Which brings me to the point that I hope noone playing RT has ever thought of disallowing pausing. Just the matter of dealing with reinforcements coming in the middle of the battle necessitates a pause (which btw is quite realistic, as you would already have formulated some kind of battle plan for these troops that would have phoned you in advance).

So the RT/WeGo argument should switch to a Pause Accepted/Disallowed argument. And in that case, as far as I am concerned, disallowing pause is tantamount to going for an RTS clickfest. No good.

[Steiner14]

@El Hombre

yeah I know, replay is cool but not really necessary

Not necessary for what?

[El Hombre]

@El Hombre

Not necessary for what?

Not necessary for playing the game. It's a very-nice-to-have, but it's not necessary.

[Steiner14]

What is necessary in a game? You mean not necessary for YOU.

[Battlefront.com]

As SgtM summed up quite well:

If you want more realism then you have to impose massive limits on the game somewhere.

Which gets us all into a collective problem. People say they want realism, but do they really? Our experience is that they want as much realism as they are comfortable dealing with, and not anything more than that. This is a problem for us since individual thresholds for the sorts of controls necessary to impose realism are all over the place. It simply isn't possible for us to please everybody, even when the feature/s themselves are sound (people always find fault even when there isn't). Those of us who are stupid enough to actually make wargames know this all too well

As far as RT v WEGO, RT is just WEGO with variable pauses. If I want to give orders to everyone I just pause and give orders. I don't understand why people consider the pause button unrealistic but it is perfectly acceptable for the world to work in 1 minute intervals.

This is a good point and I think I know the answer. People who like to micromanage are, by their very nature, not chaotic thinkers. They want order and, to a large degree, predictability. Their approach to a complex, and inherently fluid, situation is to break it down into component pieces, compartmentalize them (i.e. make them distinct from each other), and then approach the solution for the entire problem from looking at the ground up while keeping in mind higher levels of planning.

WeGo is perfect for this because it offers an extremely ridged structure to build upon. The pressures on planning and executing tactics and strategy are neatly confined and very certain; plan, issue commands, execute, evaluate and repeat. Compare this to RealTime where there is no such distinct event loop.

In RealTime planning, issuing, executing, and evaluating are all going on at the same time all the time. There is no delineation. Pausing RealTime imposes a variable and uncertain break in the action. More importantly, there is nothing to stop the player from pausing the game 2 seconds after unpausing it. People who are more micro-management oriented may find that they lack the discipline to "let things ride", and therefore find that they are stopping the action for minutes at a time every couple of seconds when the action gets going. This is extremely disruptive for the flow of the game, and therefore even though this is within the hands of the user game enjoyment goes down. Put another way, WeGoers may find that they can't help excessive use of the Pause ability in RT, and therefore want order to be imposed on them.

It's all pretty complex psychology on the one hand, but very easy to see when you look for it. WeGoers want more structure, RealTimers want more chaos. It's an oversimplification, for sure, but it is more correct than incorrect to say this. Therefore, it's very understandable that some people prefer WeGo and hate RT, while others prefer RealTime and avoid WeGO even though the game mechanics are 99% identical for each style of play.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

Steiner14,

What is necessary in a game? You mean not necessary for YOU.

El Hombre is most likely saying that it is unnecessary in terms of the underlying gameplay. And he is absolutely correct since Replay is a passive experience that has zero impact on past, present, or future gameplay from a technical standpoint. Watch a turn 1 time, 20 times, 0 times... the game itself doesn't change one iota.

What DOES change is some people's level of enjoyment of the game. So to some Replay is as essential as having the results displayed in graphical form instead of a spreadsheet. So yes, while technically speaking Replay isn't necessary for the game, it is necessary for some players. And I suspect it isn't just "some" but the vast majority.

If we were able to get in some sort of replay for RT players I'm sure it would be used by just about every RT player at least once or twice during a game. So while it may not be used to the extent WeGoers would use it, I really do think that given a choice people would want this feature available to them. I know that as much as I like RT play, and prefer it over WeGo, I find myself wanting Replay at least occasionally each game I play. I'm am able to enjoy RT without Replay, but obviously that's up to the individual.

Steve

[sfhand]

Since there are no underlying technical reasons not to...

Why not make a RT vs WeGo mode for tcp/ip?

Play the game in one minute incriments giving the WeGo player replays and disallowing pauses for the RT player. You could even have a variable time limit option between turns...

[Battlefront.com]

sfhand,

Since there are no underlying technical reasons not to...

If there were no technical reasons, we'd have already done it The best we can do for the near future is to have WeGo TCP/IP without Replay. This has been discussed in detail elsewhere on this Forum recently (Search should come up with the threads). It's not the optimal solution, we know, but it is definitely a step in the right direction.

Steve

[El Hombre]

Steve, I think your analysis of WeGo players needing rigidity is spot on. Great post. People are very different, and most people are more comfortable with more rules and rigidity rather than less.

And regarding replay, no it isn't necessary in that if it were, RT wouldn't be used at all today. Of course an RT player would love being able to understand WTH happened to the tank offscreen that got wiped out while he was planning an assault in real time on the other side of the map, but as it stands, RT is quite enjoyable already.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love an RT replay for long enough (at least 30s, better 1mn), but no, it isn't necessary to reach a more than acceptable enjoyment of the game for many.

Then again, if I played PvP (and therefore without the benefit of the pause button), I might have a very different outlook on the lack of replay . As it stands, I've never felt the absolute need for replay when playing PvE, and I define absolute need as "I'll stop playing until there's a patch with the replay".

[sfhand]

sfhand,

If there were no technical reasons, we'd have already done it The best we can do for the near future is to have WeGo TCP/IP without Replay. This has been discussed in detail elsewhere on this Forum recently (Search should come up with the threads). It's not the optimal solution, we know, but it is definitely a step in the right direction.

Steve

Umm, even without the replay, allowing one player to play in RT while the other plays WeGo could be interesting... replay isn't the only advantage of Wego when one considers large engagements.

And I don't buy the concept that WeGo players need "rigidity". I prefer WeGo because that mode of play improves my ability to monitor the battle and my ability to respond to multiple threats more efficently. While this may not be true for you or others who prefer RT, it only adds more credence to my idea that a WeGo/RT tcp/ip mode of gameplay would add another compelling layer to the CMx2 experience.

[El Hombre]

And I don't buy the concept that WeGo players need "rigidity". I prefer WeGo because that mode of play improves my ability to monitor the battle and my ability to respond to multiple threats more efficently. While this may not be true for you or others who prefer RT, it only adds more credence to my idea that a WeGo/RT tcp/ip mode of gameplay would add another compelling layer to the CMx2 experience.

Out of curiosity, do you play single player WeGo as well? Never tried RT with the pause feature?

[Huntarr]

Steve Outstanding post on WEGO/RT.

Damn you for your facts and figures:mad:

Damn me for my Rules and Regulations:rolleyes:

I feel so dirty after being pegged so perfectly:o

"You'll pry my WEGO from my cold dead hands"

[sfhand]

Out of curiosity, do you play single player WeGo as well? Never tried RT with the pause feature?

I play WeGo. I don't always watch the replay but often find it useful. I find PBEM to be the very best aspect of the game - although I'm probably an exception to the following, I find human opponents far superior to the AI.

As an aside, much has been pointed out about WeGo and players' control issues, but RT players have much more immediate control than WeGo players. So there are different types of control involved. The term micromanagement has been used to describe WeGo, but one could also view RT as micromanagement since WeGo involves submitting plans and then releasing control until the next planning interval whereas RT depends on immediate control. I'm not saying one is superior to the other. I'm glad both options are available.

I don't really want to discuss whether RT or WeGo is superior though, that would be the other thread. I'm trying to discuss an option for you and I to play each other with each of us using our preferred style of play. You would have to do without pauses and I would have to do without replays. You would have more immediate control of a unit whereas I would have the ability to control more units. When Steve said that technoligically they were virtually the same I wondered why we couldn't "get it on"!

[Battlefront.com]

sfhand,

Umm, even without the replay, allowing one player to play in RT while the other plays WeGo could be interesting... replay isn't the only advantage of Wego when one considers large engagements.

Wait a sec... you mean one player doing RT and the other doing WeGo head to head against each other? Interesting idea, but in reality it doesn't work. The RT player will have to sit around twiddling his thumbs while the WeGo player makes his moves. In theory that period of time could be infinite. I don't see anybody being that interested in such a feature and I'm sure there is some sort of code complication for having both modes working concurrently.

And I don't buy the concept that WeGo players need "rigidity". I prefer WeGo because that mode of play improves my ability to monitor the battle and my ability to respond to multiple threats more efficently.

That's basically the same thing that I'm talking about. You want to be able to control things in a more planned and deliberate way, while RTers are more likely to be comfortable with less control and less planning. This can be seen as degrees of flexibility, which is the corollary to rigidity. As far as I'm concerned there should be no assignment of "superiority" of one vs. the other. They are different, that's all.

As an aside, much has been pointed out about WeGo and players' control issues, but RT players have much more immediate control than WeGo players. So there are different types of control involved. The term micromanagement has been used to describe WeGo, but one could also view RT as micromanagement since WeGo involves submitting plans and then releasing control until the next planning interval whereas RT depends on immediate control. I'm not saying one is superior to the other. I'm glad both options are available.

Oh, completely agree. By definition, the way Commands are ordered is defacto "micro management". Meaning, you do not instruct your units in some sort of generic way and let the AI interpret your instructions and act on its own to fulfill them. So very true, in that sense both methods of play involve micro management. However, I think the degree each offers, in theory, is very different with WeGo being potentially much higher. The way to determine this would be to add up how many Commands a WeGo player makes for an average game and compare it to how many Commands a RTer makes for an average game. Then add up how much time the WeGoer spends "paused" vs. how much the RTer does. I have no doubt in my mind that WeGoer issues far more Commands and takes much more time to do it than a RTer does.

Again, this is not even remotely an attempt to show one as superior to the other.

I don't really want to discuss whether RT or WeGo is superior though, that would be the other thread. I'm trying to discuss an option for you and I to play each other with each of us using our preferred style of play. You would have to do without pauses and I would have to do without replays. You would have more immediate control of a unit whereas I would have the ability to control more units. When Steve said that technoligically they were virtually the same I wondered why we couldn't "get it on"!

As I said, it is a pretty nice concept in theory, but I don't think it is a freebee for us and there wouldn't be enough interest in putting in the effort to make it happen. But I will keep it in mind as we implement WeGo TCP/IP. Who knows, maybe there won't be technical reason to implementing it!

Steve

[sfhand]

Steve,

Once again you demonstrate that which makes Battlefront far superior to all other game developers...

Thanks!

[Battlefront.com]

Thanks

BTW, your idea of the RT/WG TCP/IP option highlights one of the primary differences in these methods of play. The "decision cycle" for WeGo is open ended, by default anyway. This means the player can pace himself as he sees fit because he knows he has infinite time to conduct his personal play style. In RT everything is on a continuum with no definite start/stop inherent in the system. It is just as disruptive for the WeGo player to have the turn start up suddenly as it would for the RT player to have a pause stuck in at regular intervals. The RT/WG multiplayer game would basically mean the WGer would get to play his normal way, the RTer would find himself playing in neither RT or in WG Modes, but rather something kinda inbetween. That would take some getting used to and there would be no solo play to reinforce it.

Yup, it's obvious that I find the play style differences between WG and RT fascinating

Steve