RealTime and WeGo discussion

[panzermartin]

I rarely pay attention to command links in CMSF. Icons are too small and its not clear in which circumstances your units are linked with HQs. Therefore you assume its not that important. Maybe a flashing light or something bigger could be useful.

CMx1 had things much more straight forward with the red lines etc. It was great using the special abilities too..stealth for recon units, morale, combat. Would be nice to see some of these back.

[Wrath of Dagon]

Two reasons I like we-go:

1) Replay makes it easier to figure out what's going on

2) I like to see how my men manage without me micromanaging them, I find that more immersive

Another vote for making things more obvious, I don't even know what HQ's are for any more. Also bringing back the blue bar would be very nice as you can't fast forward/rewind during real time, thus watching it can be a bit of a waste.

[Rocky Balboa]

MikeD Wrote: Perhaps BFC could be a bit more ham-fisted in distinguishing chain-of-command advantages. Rebuilding-in a bit of a 'bad commander' delay would be one way of doing it. If you're linked to Company HQ, and the Company commander is a drooling moron, then you take a command delay hit.

If command delays are to be added then I agree with your idea of linking command delay to leadership ratings .... I personally don't think the HQ/leadership ratings have enough impact on the CMSF battlefield .... In addition command delays should also be impacted by HQ locations or command radius .... Of course command or HQ radius should be much different for CMSF than say CM-WWII

[jenrick]

HQ and C2 could be used like it is in the SP series (well at least SPWW2). Simply put units out of HQ contact can only move short distance and shoot at units that they have spotted them selves for direct fire. No indirect fire, no charging across the battlefield etc. Visual contact with another unit of the same formation gives a chance of being in contact with HQ, as does having a radio, visual HQ contact is the only surefire way. This of course is simulating WW2 units, where radios and all the other sophisticated toys didn't exist, and a loud voice and maybe a whistle where all folks had.

Now that we've apparently got a fairly detailed simulation of C2, why not use it the same way? Units that aren't in contact with higher go to ground and only engage self spotted targets. They'll follow any previous orders but won't just suddenly decide to charge the objective by themselves normally. Unit's in C2 can act normally of course. The main thing is going to be units that are out of contact when it's time for new orders. Basically w/o the CO telling them what to do they're going to just sit tight and put some rounds down range as needed, rather then initiating movement on the objective and what not. It wouldn't be critical to keep units in C2 at all times, just to make sure they can talk to each other once things get time sensitive, like assaults, ambushes, etc. Just like RL.

Just musing,

-Jenrick

[Battlefront.com]

Overcoming the twin realism killers (Borg Brain and God View) have been a challenge for wargame designers since before commercial wargames, I'm sure. We're never going to solve it. CoPlay isn't even a solution, though it does greatly diminish both the Borg and God problems. The only true way to kill off both Borg and God is to give each player control of a single Human, in the FPS shooter design, and only give him access to information/tools that the real world counterpart would have. That means no overview map updated in realtime like every single FPS and RTS game I can think of has available

So once we all realize that there is no practical solution, it's all about what practical things can mitigate Borg and/or God problems without harming either overall realism or game enjoyability. Since nobody's come up with a good answer, either here or anywhere else, it seems that all options open to us are sub-optimal at best.

Relative Spotting is designed to mess with both since it limits direct targeting and creates a disjointed view of the battlefield intel. RealTime tends to reduce both as well, but not necessarily evenly or realistically. C2 restrictions reduce the effectiveness of Relative Spotting and powerful support fire from off map. So there are things at work to counteract Borg and God issues.

Command Delays are designed to mess around with the Borg problem, not the God problem. It does so effectively, IMHO, but with tradeoffs in realistic tactical flexibility in some cases. It also represents only a tiny range of negative results compared to what happens in real war, where some units will be inactive for hours or even days because of bad communications, poor leadership, morale problems, etc. The worst situation in CMx1 would only hit you up for a couple of minutes, generally far less than a minute.

We've had so many discussions about this stuff by lots of people who are passionate about trying to find better solutions. So far the Command Delays represent the most practical and balanced approach we have seen. Reintroducing it is probably a good thing, but I can easily see why some don't think that way. We ourselves didn't include it because of those same reasons.

Steve

[Sgt Joch]

Adding command delays is a good idea, but we do not have to just plug in the CMx1 system. With CMx2 we can come up with a more sophisticated system that takes into account command&control as well as unit experience.

Ideally, you want a system where individual units, squads/vehicles would have little delay moving within a defensive position as long as their formation leader is close by, but where there could be substantial delays to move a whole formation from one area of the map to another.

For example, Platoon HQs could have a number of "leadership points" which they would automatically spend whenever a unit under their command moves, short simple moves would cost the least and long/complex moves the most.

Therefore, once a platoon is in place, it would be very easy to move individual units around short distances to react to threats or move to better firing or defensive positions. However, it would cost more in "points" to move the entire platoon from one area of the map to the other.

So at the beginning of a scenario, each player would be flush with points and could carry out many plans, but as the scenario progresses and the points go down, the options would be limited.

For example, Platoon A starts the scenario with 1,000 points and spends 900 as it fights its way across the map. At that point, an enemy force pops up clear across the map. Platoon A with its limited remaining points cannot do much more than reorient its troops, but Platoon B which has been sitting in reserve and still has 1,000 points can move right away to meet the threat.

[dan/california]

Sgt Joch's Idea is excellent but I think the points should be recalculated every turn based on unit condition and the quality of communication with headquarters. It would matter very little what a tank platoon had done so far as long as they were unsuppressed, mechanically healthy, good on ammo and in good communication with their company commander. Degrade any of these, and many others that could be added, and their responsiveness goes down.

[Battlefront.com]

Jenrick,

Now that we've apparently got a fairly detailed simulation of C2, why not use it the same way? Units that aren't in contact with higher go to ground and only engage self spotted targets.

That's inherent in the system already since we use Relative Spotting all the time. You also can't do indirect fire unless there is a spotter with eyes on target and a communications link with the firing asset. So those things are already handled.

Restricting movement, in any way, is unrealistic. Units out of C2 should be able to go anywhere they want, just like they can in real life. A tank shouldn't need C2 to a higher authority to tell it to move off of an exposed ridge that's under enemy fire, for example, or to move a few meters to get a better shot at a target it spotted. Being in or out of C2 is not necessarily relevant even for coordinated moves since "Commander's Intent" process gives each unit the information it needs to carry out its mission without further instructions from higher up.

Therefore, I think this idea should go on the pile of ideas that we shouldn't consider. Don't feel bad... that pile is HUGE for a reason. Technically speaking, there is no good mechanism for the problem we're trying to solve. There just isn't. So it's all about finding one that sucks less than the rest, then holding one's nose and learning to live with it. Or not, as many people have said in this thread.

Sgt Joch's idea is one we've discussed a long time ago on one of the CMx1 Forums. In wargaming circles this would be called "Initiative Points", or something like that. In theory it sounds pretty good. In reality it probably is also pretty good. However, getting there is very involved. We had similar issues with the Command Delays, in fact.

In CMx1 you might remember that we penalized the time based on how many waypoints were used. If you wanted to do a small, simple maneuver it didn't cost much even for crappy units. But the more waypoints you used the more delay was built in and the more "brittle" the plan was because stopping in the middle and restarting was likely to result in disaster. So once started it was very difficult to stop. The incentive, therefore, was to do very short moves and then reassess. RealTime sorta has that built in, BTW.

We initially had a distance related Command Delay system. This was early in development and only a couple of people ever saw it. Quite simply put... it sucked We yanked it in favor of the system you guys are familiar with.

What I think we should do is table this sort of a feature until the next family of games. I don't think we have enough time to fully flesh it out and test it before Normandy. This is the sort of thing that requires a LOT of dedicated thinking and huge amounts of testing since finding the right balance, and coding around "gotchas", is likely to take a long time.

But ultimately, I agree that Initiative Points holds the most promise as a vague concept.

Steve

[Steiner14]

Don't know if this idea is any good, but it just came into mind regarding initiative "points": what if certain enemy measures could affect initiative points negatively, i.e. artillery barrages or air attacks?

So a heavy barrage without strong physical losses could nevertheless result in the reduced ability to order complex tasks afterwards. Depending on troop quality, the impact could be weighted differently, too (a company of crack SS would be not so highly "disturbed" to conduct further complex movements/coordinations, while a conscript Volkssturm could become severely confused).

In CMx1 i always found the amount of supression due to artillery vanishing too fast (although the impact on morale was balanced very well), because it was only reflected by the reduced morale status of the units.

If i think of a defender, receiving a barrage, the reduced initiative would not harm his ability to wait for the enemy and fight coming attackers back besides the effects of morale/supression.

But when a barrage hits units, that are preparing for an attack, this should cause major problems to fulfill complex and highly syncronized tasks afterwards - even if morale has recovered -> initiative is disturbed.

Maybe this would also offer a good solution to the not so perfect possiblity in CMx1, to concentrate big amounts of units before an attack, without much danger, that enemy artillery or air raids, would cause a long lasting "confusion".

But if an attacker has to be aware, to lose a lot of initiative "points", that are necessary to conduct the attack properly, if artillery or air attacks take place, this should in practice lead to less concentrated units, which i have to admit, are not that realistical, although i vastly made use of it, especially in tank battles - manage two or even three tanks extremely close together attacking one enemy tank at the same moment, was often the guarantee to win every tank battle.

[Sgt Joch]

But ultimately, I agree that Initiative Points holds the most promise as a vague concept.

the IP concept could be a lot more flexible than the CMx1 system. HQs would spend points as they move their troops forward and would regain points when they stop moving and regroup.

When you study tactical warfare, you see the same pattern emerge:

1. Units move forward from their initial positions;

2. They get disorganized as they move forward due the terrain and/or enemy action;

3. They regroup and consolidate;

In WW2, the German counterattack doctrine tried to catch the enemy between steps 2 and 3 when they were at their most vulnerable.

In CMx1 and CMx2, this is hard to replicate since units are subject to the same movement restriction throughout the battle.

With initiative points, you could approximate that pattern since a player would have a lot points at the beginning, but his attack would lose steam over time, making him more vulnerable to a conterattack.

[Steiner14]

Sgt. Joch,

interesting aspects.

Maybe beside the implementation of IPs in the core of the game, also scenario-designers could be given the possibility to assign some kind of IP-recovery factor to a side, or to single units, determining, how fast/slow, and maybe even under which conditions, IPs are restored?

That way some kind of higher "morale" could be simulated, not necessarily depending on the units morale. For example crack SS in May '45 organizing for a local counter attack. Morale is good, initiative too. But a heavy unexpected soviet artillery barrage shows, that although losses are minimal, the target will hardly be reached -> IPs collapsing.

IPs could affect not only the action-delays, or pause commands in several ways, but also the amount of allowed movement actions for one unit, or how far from the unit the endpoint of the movement is allowed to be.

[Battlefront.com]

Steiner14,

The problem with any system that attempts to make generalizations based on specific events on the battlefield is that it doesn't work The artillery bombardment you mention... why should a platoon completely unaffected by, or perhaps even unaware of, a bombardment (let's say it was 500m away on the other side of a hill) suffer some sort of hit? Especially if it was already carrying out orders given to them before the bombardment?

The best way to penalize units from direct action, such as being hit by a bombardment, is to directly whack the units in some way. In CMx1 this was difficult to do because morale and suppression were a single thing, but in CMx2 they are separate. You can have a very good units Suppressed without it's Morale breaking, or a unit which is lightly Suppressed freaking out because a mortar round went off near it.

When negative things happen to the unit it does, already, affect how the unit responds. The unit can bugger off in search of cover, cower where it is, momentarily halt its motion before continuing, etc. If the units were in the middle of executing a very complicated maneuver, this could spell disaster for that force. Getting to the ridgeline with 1/4th as many rifles than you expected might mean the poor saps that get up there aren't able to do more than get shot at by the enemy. A tank that loses its infantry might get whacked by enemy infantry, etc.

I'll put it another way. The more situationally specific a system is, the less likely it will work. This is a general rule of thumb. Therefore, whatever solution we do come up with has to be applied to units based on deviations between optimal and suboptimal unit qualities (such as Morale and Suppression) in relation to some sort of specific formula based on deviations from optimal and suboptimal stimuli that are general in nature (incoming firepower, amount of friendly casualties, Experience, etc.).

Sgt. Joch's suggestion satisfies the restrictions I just outlined. Or at least it can be crafted in a way that it would work out like that. The problem is that it's a very complex task to get something like this implemented, tested, tweaked, and finalized. I'm not sure it's something we have the time to tackle in the near future, but I do like the idea of eventually trying out something other than Command Delays like CMx1 had. I suspect Initiative Points is the right sort of direction.

The reason why IPs could work is because they only interfere with the higher level planning and control. The units themselves are not penalized, per se. This is different from the Command Delays which penalize individual units based on their quality and what they are attempting to do, which indirectly interferes with higher level planning and control. This is also the problem with IPs since until the player starts noticing a shortage of IPs there is no negative impact on planning. If you carry out a perfect and "unrealistically" coordinated plan that succeeds before the IPs start running out, then there is in effect no difference between the game as it is now. So a lot of work would have gone into a system that doesn't really address the problem.

I'll say again... many brilliant wargamer minds have tried to figure out clever ways to overcome the God and Borg problems. None have succeeded so far. I doubt we will, though it is possible we could come up with something that sucks less than any of the other systems out there

Steve

[Sgt Joch]

Steiner14,

The problem is that it's a very complex task to get something like this implemented, tested, tweaked, and finalized. I'm not sure it's something we have the time to tackle in the near future, but I do like the idea of eventually trying out something other than Command Delays like CMx1 had. I suspect Initiative Points is the right sort of direction.

The best indicator of whether this is doable or not will be how Charles reacts after Steve explains the concept to him...any reaction other than "Are you insane!!???" and we're in business....

[jenrick]

My question with regard to IP's is how would the be integrated in RT? For WEGO it makes sense to charge them for discrete actions, almost as activation counters with stored actions in later turns. What the refresh timing in RT? In WEGO if you approximate that each HQ has enough IP to issue 3 stored orders per unit under it's command per turn (continually refreshing, not out of your initial IP pool), that means you can't get too complex without restricting other units. Sure no problem, that's kinda the point.

However what's the refresh schedule for RT? In a WEGO turn your can conceivable issue orders that will carry on for the rest of the battle to every unit that will then be set in motion in 1 minute increments. In RT there are a finite amount of units you can click on in one minute and issue orders. Probably still less then the total amount of IP your get per refresh if you're working with smaller formations and simple movements. Unless you pause the game, set them all at in the permission setup, or use the pause command army wide (and I'm not sure you can even do that) setting up convoluted strings of orders for each and every unit causing your IP to seriously decrease isn't likely to happen. In my experience RT tends to be a much shorter simpler of "move here, cover here" fire team style orders rather then the more elaborate WEGO op-order style orders with multiple way points with different commands and pauses linked to them to effect what we want.

Is this going to result in IP not being used in RT, making at an exclusive WEGO item? Is RT going to stay around in the first place?

Steve regarding your earlier reply:

Restricting movement, in any way, is unrealistic. Units out of C2 should be able to go anywhere they want, just like they can in real life. A tank shouldn't need C2 to a higher authority to tell it to move off of an exposed ridge that's under enemy fire, for example, or to move a few meters to get a better shot at a target it spotted. Being in or out of C2 is not necessarily relevant even for coordinated moves since "Commander's Intent" process gives each unit the information it needs to carry out its mission without further instructions from higher up.

The issue with units going to ground when out of C2 contact is to limit a player from using a single unit cut off from the rest of his command to launch a lone wolf style attack. Has it happened before? Sure, but in general I'd say most small units when cut off momentarily from there leadership with no further orders are going to sit tight. They might move a couple of meters here or there go get out of fire, or to engage and enemy they saw. They are probably not going to go charging down a road solo no matter how undefended it appears to be. That may be where the next artillery barrage is headed for. I do however agree that a unit that has been issue orders already is not going to cease following them just because they are out of C2 contact.

Therefore, I think this idea should go on the pile of ideas that we shouldn't consider. Don't feel bad... that pile is HUGE for a reason. Technically speaking, there is no good mechanism for the problem we're trying to solve. There just isn't. So it's all about finding one that sucks less than the rest, then holding one's nose and learning to live with it. Or not, as many people have said in this thread.

No worries, I know that until I front some dev. capital I don't really get to be too picky on what goes in the game or not

I personally would prefer seeing more adjustment to the orders and way point system for those of us not familiar with the WEGO system. Maybe if I'd played CM1 et al I'd be more comfortable with it. Right now it's an exercise in frustration. As it stands to me it feels as though WEGO requires far more micromanagement then RT, but unfortunately of the interface and the orders system rather then of the units themselves.

In RT if I've got a unit that's a little more exposed then I'd like (or with the way my luck goes sitting in the middle of a featureless open plain), I can immediately move it to go hull down etc. In WEGO if that unit moves to that unexpectedly exposed position (say just a hair to far up a ridge line so the belly rather then turret face is exposed) that I wasn't anticipating in the first second of the turn I have no control of it for the next 59 seconds. Sure fog of war, s**t happens, etc. However I think the platoon sergeant, Lt, etc. would most likely take note of that issue and have them move.

If the game is going to simulate company command or higher then I'd say the fact your ordered that platoon into the open is your own problem, but your units should automatically find cover in the nearby area (in the ridge line example maybe a meter or two) automatically. If we're simulating individual vehicles then I should be able to move to a hull down position with ease as I can use my crew mates to tell me when I'm there if I'm near an earea with cover. If it's platoon level I should expect my squad/vehicles to be able to handle stuff like that when given an area to move to just like at the higher levels. WEGO as it stands requires the player be every TC, platoon sergeant, Lt, FO, CO, etc, but doesn't give him the tools to do so effectively. Learning to read terrain and use it is a critical skill for any solider. WEGO to me makes it very difficult to do so, as a rolling series of sand dunes should provide a lot of good firing positions, but a click a hair off can leave a unit totally exposed or totally out of the fight for 60 seconds. A real tank would simply creep to where ever it needed to be to get a good firing position.

A halfway competent tank crew is going to know that unless they are order to sit in the open exposed by the LT after he's been given orders by the company commander, that they are going to need to find a hull done fighting position in the general vicinity of the area they are order to stop in. Same with infantry. US doctrine at least pushes initiative down. WEGO doesn't seem to do that, or perhaphs it pushes ALL the initiative to the player. Without a way to see a head of time if the location I'm moving a tank to is a hull down spot, or to issue the order to do so, it feels like the tank crew is a bunch of FNG's at armor school.

The reason I harp on the hull down issue is to me it's sort the general issue I have with WEGO. If something as automatic to a tank crew as preferring a hull down firing position to an exposed position if one is available in the immediate area is not easily ordered then everything else is just more complex to get accomplished. RT still requires the same amount of micromanagement to get those tanks into hull down positions, but at least I can do so immediately when I find out that they're not there already.

-Jenrick

[Steiner14]

Steve,

The artillery bombardment you mention... why should a platoon completely unaffected by, or perhaps even unaware of, a bombardment (let's say it was 500m away on the other side of a hill) suffer some sort of hit? Especially if it was already carrying out orders given to them before the bombardment?

Are you talking about my suggestions? They are distance related.

[Battlefront.com]

Jenrick,

My question with regard to IP's is how would the be integrated in RT?

Just one of many questions that needs to be answered. And that's the problem with a systemic approach... there are bound to be tons of questions that come up. Some of most simple concepts in a game take unbelievable amounts of time to design. The artillery/air support system (UI, rules, data structures, etc.) probably took. It was also designed and revised over the course of many months. This fairly straight forward, narrowly defined feature probably took well over 2 man months to implement from start to finish, and maybe 2 years elapsed time for the design phase itself (design, reflect, revise, redesign, reflect, revise... then eventually implement, reflect, redesign, tweak, reflect, redesign, tweak... tons of work). That's why we're not going to be implementing anything like initiative points right away. Not enough time and energy available.

Sure, but in general I'd say most small units when cut off momentarily from there leadership with no further orders are going to sit tight.

Oh, I'm going to have to disagree with this statement quite strongly In general units move according to the orders they were given before moving with the presumption that they won't be in direct contact with their immediate HQ. When a unit starts to doubt that it should keep going it is usually because something unexpected, and serious, has cropped up and they can't get verification from their HQ what to do about it. This is less of a problem with the US military, at least, because they operate (or are supposed to operate!) under the "commander's intent" methodology for this reason. Meaning, the commander explains what it is they are supposed to be doing, in detail and in context of the larger plan, and then they carry it out to the best of their ability.

Now, obviously for some forces in some historical epochs this is not the case. But I think you'd be surprised at what even conscript Soviets did in the early part of the war with Germany. There are more than a few cases of single, or small clusters, of Soviet tanks driving around the German rear shooting up stuff until they got taken out of action. It frustrated the Germans to no end because these tanks didn't care about being in C2, they didn't care about being cut off, they didn't care that there was no specific objective... they just drove around causing trouble. Usually not for very long.

So I'll say again, restricting movement in any sort of systemic, arbitrary manner is inherently unrealistic. It is also generally detrimental to gameplay enjoyment, therefore we have to be extremely careful about how far to take any restrictions. The Command Delay in CMx1 was quite mild and even that had some significant problems.

However I think the platoon sergeant, Lt, etc. would most likely take note of that issue and have them move.

Sure, but the amount of AI that would be required to have units be largely autonomous is measured in years of coding to come up with a product that most people would think was, at best, "mostly not sucky" Therefore, you won't see what we call a "command level" game from us. It's simply not commercially viable. Plus, the worst thing is that most wargamers HATE command level games because they do want to micromanage and definitely don't want the AI "screwing things up". So it's a lose-lose proposition for us.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

Steiner14,

Are you talking about my suggestions? They are distance related.

Yes, I was talking about your suggestion. Reread again why I said that attempting to design a system that is stimuli centric, instead of behavior centric, is simply not the way to go. Design the behaviors you are looking for and then have generalized input trigger them. That's the only way to go, and even then it's pretty darned hard to do.

Another way to think about it is in terms of logic. It's much better, in all ways, to make a Fuzzy Logic system instead of a hardcoded cause/effect system. Fuzzy systems are inherently more powerful and less brittle. Keying behavior off of changes in unit statistics (including suppression, sudden spikes in incoming firepower, etc.) is a lot better than keying off of very specific types of battlefield situations (like an artillery hit).

Steve

[El Hombre]

The core problem is that we are put in the position of the overall commander making tactical decisions, but we are given the ability to control with extreme precision the behavior of troops.

Until and unless there's a method to modify the precision of control of troop behavior, none of the solutions will work. I suggest finding a user interface that would allow for fuzzier troop behavior control: you have a squad very close to the CO (shouting distance), you should be able to tell the squad to move to those specific 2 windows and aim at the 4 windows across the street. If the squad is further out, you should only be able to tell it to find a decent vantage point to suppress the buildings across the street. If the squad is very far, in the tail end of a complex manoeuvre, be happy the squad is somewhere around the original objective.

So if that UI is doable, then you map the control precision to a fuzzy probabilistic algorithm whose inputs are the usual suspects (comm distance from CO, morale, experience, LOS, etc.. etc...)

I think that simply making the endpoint of a command be instead a probabilistic disc of varying radius or even shape would work wonders.

Just the 2 cents of someone who's pretty involved in UIs and probabilities.

[Thomm]

By the way, what became of the great idea of squads out-of-command becoming invisible to the player?

Best regards,

Thomm

[ChrisND]

By the way, what became of the great idea of squads out-of-command becoming invisible to the player?

Best regards,

Thomm

Do you mean completely invisible? How would they become visible again?

[Thomm]

Do you mean completely invisible? How would they become visible again?

By getting into command range of a HQ unit. I think it was even described like that in the original manual.

Best regards,

Thomm

[ChrisND]

By getting into command range of a HQ unit. I think it was even described like that in the original manual.

Best regards,

Thomm

So they could be lost for the entire scenario, sitting on their butts? I'd rather be gamey.

[Thomm]

So they could be lost for the entire scenario, sitting on their butts? I'd rather be gamey.

And that, I suppose, was why the concept was abandoned.

Best regards,

Thomm

[Battlefront.com]

Without autonomous AI that could follow the player's plans and intents, units must remain within the player's control. Since we've always known this, and also known that such AI is commercially impossible to develop, we've never considered this concept. Simply put, it doesn't work

Steve

[Steiner14]

What if units would stay to some degree under player's control, although they have become invisible?

What about a command that allows drawing a rectangle on the map and assigning a move-command to the units in it. Then the invisible units in that rectangle start to move (after a certain amount of time) to that Sammelpunkt where they could become visible again.