How does CM:SF stack up against CMx1?

[Joe Shaw]

As the Peng Challenge Thread hasn't weighed in on this question I feel it incumbent upon me to reply ...

I have no problem whatever stacking CMSF up against or even on top of CMBO/BB/AK provided that you use those nifty little cases the CD comes in. Obviously if you try to stack the actual shipping envelopes you may have some issues.

Hoping that we've shed a bit more light on this we remain ... The Mutha Beautiful Thread.

Joe

[Sergei]

Is digging in even covered in modern military training? Entrenching tools are obviously no longer default part of the infantryman's kit

My eyes bleed from reading those lines! Yes, you learn to dig in, and yes, the tools to do so are a default part of the kit in any self respecting army. Every soldier is a digger first. Lately it has been highly fashionable to do MOUT fighting, which kind of makes foxholes et al pointless when you can take positions inside buildings, but even then you might want to have that shovel with you in case you wanted to beef up your positions with sandbags.

[MarkEzra]

Another example, are fords that are clearly displayed in CMX1 because of the basic display capability. In CMX2, it is almost impossible to read the screen and find the best way through a river...

Really? You're sure of that?

[Flanker15]

CMx2 is already much better than CMx1, the main sticking point is things that were in CMx1 that haven't made it to CMx2. Most of them are in the works and should turn up eventually.

I'm really excited about the WW2 game, everyones (mostly) favorite setting with all the advantages of CMx2. It'll be awseome!

[Vinnart]

I think they are both really good games worth getting. Fans should find the latest version of the game has more of a Cmx1 feel, but different. Better in many ways, but still missing some great stuff from Cmx1. I do miss some of the simplistic beauty Cmx1 has in some of the abstractions especially in knowing definitively that you are in cover terrain. From what i see though CMSF must still have some abstractions to it with tree cover. I never see infantry crawling up to a tree trunk for cover as one would figure would be the result if it were totally what you see is what you get system as it claims to have. I may be wrong, but then again due to the setting of CMSF the only real cover I have come across so far are buildings, walls, and trenches.

Graphically of course CMx1 is rather bland after playing CMSF. Core tactics and depth are about the same adjusting to the modern weapons.

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[hoolaman]

Thats true MikeyD. The problem is, CMSF is 1:1 now but it still cant compete with our imagination. When you have animations for reloading a rifle and shells ricocheting of the turrets and then landing on the ground, you ask for this detail in every corner of the battlefield. You want infantry formations, hit marks on tanks, tracks blown off, soldiers being thrown by blast waves, bullet holes on buildings, variety in environments, dead holstein cows and the list is endless. BFC has picked the what you see is what you get but it is entering a world very demanding in visual representation, in which our imagination cannot help. It's like a photorealistic painting with exhausting level of detail that its very demanding to finish and you cant cheat with abstractions here and there because they will look out of place. So, in a way the game is always in WIP mode. It feels very different compared to 1.00 release and I bet in 2 years time it will feel quite different from 1.11. I have started to think that the flexibility and the easy way to add new things with the new engine is both good and bad. On the other hand, I do like seeing our favourite game shaping and improving with our input here.

That is quite true, but I think the Syrian environment and the clunky method of adding "flavor objects" in the editor are 99% of the problem, at least with the maps. Vehicles look great, maps CAN look great, and I expect they will when we get to normandy, but then there is the infantry representation.

I think by far the infantry movement and formations, running etc, is the clunkiest part of the game. The way the action spots work also has some unfortunate side-effects on pathing and spotting that break immesrion for me. This is the big difference in the game and one many of CMSFs most passionate haters still cannot get over. CMBO had much finer underlying grid resolution and the infantry model was so simple you could fill in the blanks with imagination.

I really wish there was a method of spacing soldiers more realistically, and having them deploy in a better way than the 8x8 squares, having them move in line abreast instead of a stream of single file etc. A few formations orders, a "density" (space between men) selection and a way of deploying in a line or arrow instead of the clunky move then face action spot thing we have now, would vastly improve the infantry modelling.

[Kwazydog]

Dan, the spotting stuff is based on infantry tests. Infantry on modern battlefields don't get any particular advantage spotting concealed machine guns unless they have thermal vision equipment, but I don't think CMSF infantry do - do they? I've run tests using Syrian infantry as well and found that it's still too easy to spot stuff. Another thing that I miss from AK/BB was the positional ambiguity about the "?"'s. (Question mark contacts.) I guess making small arms fire harder to spot and adding that ambiguity back in are two things I'd recommend.

Adam I just ran a test with an Syrian MG team opposite a 4 man US Stryker team. Both sides were 'un-hidden', they were about 300m apart and were each located within a wooded area on a grassy map. After 10 minutes neither side had managed to spot the other. At that time I ordered the Syrian MG team to open fire at a random point and the US guys spotted them as a ? after about 15-20 seconds, and identified them after another 5-10.

This doesnt sound unreasonable to me, particularly after having seen the dust and smoke kicked up from MG fire in real life. We also need to keep in mind that the US team was equipped with binocs as well as each member having a weapon with a telescopic sight attached.

Could they have been too easy to spot? It feels about right to be, but maybe I guess. If info can be provided that suggests this doesnt seem right its certainly something we can look into. I dont feel that CMx1 is a great reference though as its a different game with different troops with different equipment and there is nothing to say that we had it right there, either.

[MarkEzra]

...CMx1 isnt a great reference though as its a different game with different troops with different equipment and there is nothing to say that we had it right there, either.

I seem to recall BFC explaining that CMx1's "under the hood" combat resolutions were good for their time but could never evolve due to the game's engine. That what players see with CMx2 today is a far more accurate combat resolution program.

Sort of the difference between listening to a story on the Radio or going to the Movies. Just because I liked one doesn't mean I can't love another.

[Other Means]

Sort of the difference between listening to a story on the Radio or going to the Movies. Just because I liked one doesn't mean I can't love another.

I think that's a decent analogy. CM1 was like the book, CM2 is like the movie.

Some people will never like the movie but most people will never read the book.

[Patrocles]

CMSF looks very nice compared to CMx1 (in fact, I can no longer play cmbo because of the graphics! lol). However, CMx1 has a much higher "fun" factor over CMSF!

If you like modern combat get CMSF. If you want a fun and engrossing game get CMBB and/or CMAK.

[MikeyD]

That what players see with CMx2 today is a far more accurate combat resolution program.

What CMx2 also gives is what CMx1 players had demanded! "Give us 1:1 units!", "Give us a realtime option!", "Give us vehicle interiors!", "Give us more complex buildings!", "Give us more detailed terrain!", "Give us time-sensitive environments!" Poor BFC can't win with some old CMx1 grousers.

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[BlackMoria]

I don't know if it is factored into the spotting in the game but in RL, machine guns have a tracer round for every 5th round unless you take pains to replace them with normal rounds. Tracers certainly help the gunner get on target but they also give your position away.

Just pointing that out since it wasn't mentioned in the machine gun discussion in the last few posts.

[Gpig]

Just had the game for about 2 weeks now. I love it.

The only issue I have with it is you can't place infantry "exactly" where you want. But the more I play, the less that bothers me because with experience you CAN get them where you need them. And all the other goodness far outweighs that niggle.

Last night I destroyed the lead Syrian tank attacking along a tight urban street and effectively blocked the advance of the follow on tanks. Nice!

GPig

[Battlefront.com]

I think it is very important to keep the apples to oranges aspect of comparing CM:SF with any of the CMx1 games, including CMAK. As was said earlier, the subject matter is so different technologically speaking that a meaningful comparison becomes difficult. But it becomes even more difficult when one considers that it's Human nature to favor the system which is more familiar than the system which isn't. The two games are night and day different in terms of how they portray warfare (even forgetting the 50 year technology difference).

I also agree, and we've had many conversations about this in the past, that one of the benefits of an abstract system is that player imagination smooths over rough spots. I'll illustrate this using a quote from Adam because I think it illustrates this point and also illustrates, I think, why he is wrong to say that it's not about imagination (at least to some extent):

Infantry abstraction in AK/BB was better at modeling infantry movement and cover seeking than CMSF. SF's infantry have a pretty hard time making use of the terrain imo.... Abstraction in AK/BB also covers for deficiencies in SF like not being able to corner or make good use of a crest, it also has a smoothing effect on little things like single infantrymen not being positioned properly, or not making use of cover effectively, where in SF you will suffer for the tac-ai in that sense much more.

In reality, CMx1's infantry didn't handle cover better than CM:SF. I know this for sure because CMx1's infantry didn't have any concept of cover because the terrain was too abstract A 20m x 20m space with a single type of terrain? It's absurdly unrealistic. So why bother modeling taking cover in an environment that has absolutely no realistic cover to use? Exactly So all CMx1 did was have modifiers to the various things like the chance of being hit. In other words, a weighted role of the dice.

If you think of it as any more than a role of the dice, then you're using your imagination. And how could you do anything other than that with Moe, Larry, and Curley doing nothing but toggle between firing, kneeling idle, or hitting the dirt? Imagination is necessary to take the visual representation, which is obviously unrealistic, and morph that into something like "they take better cover" instead of just thinking "those animations are meaningless except to represent what the die rolls are coming up as".

Now, before the usual "why do you hate CMx1 so much?" accusations resurface, as they often do, let me state again that there isn't anything BAD about the way CMx1 simulates things. It's just different than CMx2. VERY different, therefore a direct comparison between the two along realism and/or technical lines of argument is bound to run into problems.

Obviously some rather have a system which is clearly abstract reality vs. a system which isn't clearly literal reality. As I've said many times before, the world isn't a black and white place like this. CMBO compared to ASL is far less abstract, but not a literal portrayal of real life. CM:SF is far less abstract than CMBO, but is not a literal portrayal of real life. It's all on a continuum with games like Chess on one end of the spectrum and real life on the other. We'll never have a true simulation of realife warfare (and I do mean NEVER), yet we also don't have to settle with Chess as a means of stimulating the tactical and strategic thought processes of the brain. Each individual person will have to make up his own mind as to where his comfort level is and play the games that fit that mindset.

So besides the imagination issue, there is also the comparing of apples to oranges problem I spoke of earlier. Again, I think Adam provides a good quote to highlight this issue:

Simulation of a defence in CMSF is particularly poor. SF's defenders are both easier to spot and easier to kill, and infantry in SF don't get the same benefits from getting below ground level as AK/BB's infantry.

The weaponry is very different. All Blue soldiers, for example, have at least 4x sights and laser designators on their weapons. They have better inter unit and extra unit communications. Weapons, once brought to bear on the enemy, are far more efficient and effective than their WW2 counterparts. And that's just the stuff that's more-or-less directly comparable, such as a Garand to a M4 and a BAR to a M249. Things enter a whole new ballgame when you start talking about things like M203 grenade launchers, accurate mortars, air bursts, better designed munitions, etc. These massive differences make broad generalizations about CMAK vs. CM:SF quite meaningless because the devil is very much in the details.

Now, having said all of that I'll repeat what I've said for a long time now. CM:SF is not perfect, therefore by definition there are things that should be improved. However, some calls for change are based more on opinion than fact, and often there are counters to those opinions which need to be considered. This was true for CMBO Beta Demo all the way through today, BTW. Opinions are like arseholes... everybody has one (as the saying goes ).

It is our job to sort through the opinions and figure out the best way forward, then proceed as best we can to move the game forward. By definition this means some people will be left with opinions which we have purposefully chose to not do something to satisfy. Which, of course, means that there will always be a level of complaint about this and that feature as well as the game as a whole. I still see people complaining about the changes we made to CMBB to handle MGs better, for example, because it made the game "less fun" for them. Were we wrong to make the changes? Were we wrong to NOT regress the game back to a "more fun" previous state? In my opinion we were not. So at some point the person has to agree to disagree with our position then make their decision about if what we make is something they want to play. That's the good part of Capitalism The bad part, of course, is that making wargames is a terrible way to make a living so few try and even fewer succeed.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

Ali-baba,

Also, isnt a fact that today's soldiers shoot more to kill compared to WW2 where most infantrymen only wanted to scare or wound the enemy? I think book "on killing" has some insight about that, on how drills and even FPS games are used to literally turn a soldier into a hitman.

No, I don't think that's the case at all. What is the case is that the modern infantryman has a greater theoretical chance of killing the enemy than his WW2 couterpart. An infantryman, with excellent skills cover and concealment, is better able to survive an attack by a squad armed with bolt action rifles than one armed with a range of full automatics with laser designators, magnification, and complementary weapons that can accurately chuck HE into the defender's position. A defending unit is better able to survive when the enemy is only loosely coordinated and is only occasionally backed up by tactical combined arms significantly different than what is carried by an individual soldier, compared against a fully modernized combined arms force which has flexibility and lethality unimaginable even 20-30 years ago, not to mention 60.

The problem is, CMSF is 1:1 now but it still cant compete with our imagination. When you have animations for reloading a rifle and shells ricocheting of the turrets and then landing on the ground, you ask for this detail in every corner of the battlefield. You want infantry formations, hit marks on tanks, tracks blown off, soldiers being thrown by blast waves, bullet holes on buildings, variety in environments, dead holstein cows and the list is endless.

I will point out that all of these things have been requested since before CMBO Beta Demo even came out It's an impossibly long and "expensive" wish list, so we have to break it up into chunks and do as much as we can as we go along. CMBO final version made improvements over CMBO Beta Demo, CMBB made improvements over CMBO, CMAK made a couple of modest improvements over CMBB, and CM:SF made massive improvements over CMAK. Still a long way away from satisfying some gamers/wargamers, but we can only do what we can do. A couple of million Dollars for R&D would speed up progress far less than people think. Not that we wouldn't mind having the ability to prove ourselves wrong on that point

So, in a way the game is always in WIP [Work In Progress] mode.

Yes, and that's been the case since you guys first laid eyes on CMBO Beta Demo. It will never be finished because it isn't possible to since finishing means simulating real warfare 100% accurately in all ways.

I have started to think that the flexibility and the easy way to add new things with the new engine is both good and bad.

Actually, there's only a good side to this. As I just stated, it's impossible to get to the ultimate wargame that people have stuck in their heads. We can, however, progress towards it provided there is some basic compatibility with the vision (i.e. Company of Heros guys will likely disagree with our vision!). The easier it is to add stuff, the faster we can get there and the more stuff we can include for the same amount of money. Sure, it does mean that the game system is always in a state of flux. But the alternative is to either not make any more changes or to withhold them until there is a new release. Personally, we don't see that as a good thing to do. I think the majority here would agree. Plus, if someone really doesn't want to see the game as it changes... don't download the patches

Steve

[Kwazydog]

Dust is easily solved by defenders by using materials, either water (or piss) and/or matting materials. That means you need to be close enough to spot the "smokeless" exhaust of expended rounds.

To be honest Adam Im not sure if water is going to be a practical solution 24/7, even in a premade firing position. In general maybe that is someting that should be taken into consideration in the case of pre-prepared positions though. Are your concerns only with pre-made firing positions?

Personally I think that the main tool in spotting enemy fire which you havnt mentioned would actually be the audio. From my experieance after 3-4 audio ques such as a bullet being fired you can pretty much look in the exact direction of the sound. Now if you have 4 guys doing this with bincos and telescopic sights, how long is it going to take for them to found the source 300m away? Again, Im not saying its definately right in game, but you havnt yet provided info which indicates if this isnt the case, either.

Dan

[MikeyD]

Yes, I think of dust as a handy 'substitute' for cues that are too subtle to be in the game. You can't echo-locate the direction of unseen clanking tank tracks. You can't see where other people in your line of sight are looking and pointing, or running away from. But you have dust. As a 'generic' indicator it make up for what's missing. People complain that dust is not subject to FOW, but if you think of it as a substitute for missing sound cues then it becomes less gamey.

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[Kwazydog]

Hey Adam

Sound contacts are okay, but we shouldn't know exactly what 8x8 tile the mg is sitting in after hearing it fire for 15 seconds.

The problem is that all we have here at the moment are opinions . For instance the length of the video you provide is 20 seconds long. From 300m away Im thinking that it might be quite possible that youd be able to spot the guys firing the weapon within that time. As an example attached are a couple of youtube vids of US troops coming under fire from unexpected locations. To me is seems like they are able to identify the targets and return fire in a reasonably short amount of time.

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=v7f1-cDSZWk

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=CNlnIXu0ww8&feature=related

Now Im open to being wrong here, and its quite possible I am. As I mentioned, as I dont have actual combat experience so I can only default my opinion to those whom have. It is something I will look into further though and do some more testing. With regards to the other stuff most of it will be looked at one way or another before WW2, though what changes are made will depend on a variety of factors.

Dan

[Battlefront.com]

The primary problem with videos (which Dan I and were talking about last week for a slightly related reason) is that their are so low res and small that they don't have much bearing on some types of analysis. In fact, find me a video of a firefight where you can clearly see an enemy position at any range! One video I saw the other day had a bunch of Marines coordinating fire on someone they could see (they even identified the weapon the guy had), yet even with the camera pointed right at the location I, as the viewer, didn't see squat. I've watched HUNDREDS of these things (including a bunch from Chechnya just a few minutes ago) and it's clear that a host of factors, including bad camera work, just doesn't show off the battlefield the way it is experienced in real life. Smoke and muzzle flashes seem to be nearly invisible in these things.

Now, having said that... as Dan said we're not going to sit here and say that everything in the game now is perfect. The problem is we have nothing but opinions to go on. We have Adam, for example, who says it doesn't seem right to him. We have soldiers who have been in this type of environment in combat saying that overall it does. Maybe the soldiers aren't being hard enough on the game, maybe Adam is being too hard on it. it's difficult to tell since opinions are really all there is to go by.

Adam, out of the five specifics you listed one has already been addressed (won't be available until the British release). Three are open for discussion, though they've all been discussed many times over and I'm mostly satisfied that we've made the right tweaks over the past many months.

The last one is about tank avoidance of things it should drive over... last time this came up we tried to replicate bad behavior and couldn't. Keep in mind that our position is that the virtual tanks should try to avoid things in the game that real tankers try to avoid in real life. The layperson's tendency is to think that tanks drive over anything and everything that they want to, while the tank drivers out there have gone on record time and time again saying that just isn't the case. Tanks are useful only if they remain mobile, therefore driving over things that can bung up the tracks/suspension is to be avoided. It would be wrong of us to ignore this fact, but of course if specifics can be indicated where tankers agree something is wrong... changes are pretty easy to make on our end.

Steve

[Apocal]

The last one is about tank avoidance of things it should drive over... last time this came up we tried to replicate bad behavior and couldn't. Keep in mind that our position is that the virtual tanks should try to avoid things in the game that real tankers try to avoid in real life. The layperson's tendency is to think that tanks drive over anything and everything that they want to, while the tank drivers out there have gone on record time and time again saying that just isn't the case. Tanks are useful only if they remain mobile, therefore driving over things that can bung up the tracks/suspension is to be avoided. It would be wrong of us to ignore this fact, but of course if specifics can be indicated where tankers agree something is wrong... changes are pretty easy to make on our end.

Steve

So can I expect to see an option for AFVs to reverse their gun and breach the walls of a house next patch? We've been doing it for years, I remember seeing the Kool-Aid Man demonstrate this back in the 90s!