Command Delay In CM:N?

[Lanzfeld]

I remember reading that Steve said they wanted to try CMSF without the command delay that was in CMx1 hence we have what we have today. Now that the "experiment" is over I was just wondering what you think of eliminating the delay and will you be bringing it back for CM:N?

[Clevinger]

When I tried SF for the first time, I was very surprised that BFC chose to withdraw the command delays. But I was very comfortable with that, since between each waypoint you have to wait for the squad to gather. Which is a form of delay in itself.

I think that reintroducing command delays in the forms of CMx1 wouldn't be a real progress.

[undead reindeer cavalry]

as long as the telepaths have their mana levels on green there is no need for command delays as the orders are transmitted to men instantly using various telepathic methods. though once the mana has been drained, the men are forced to use archaic ape-like primitive communication methods, like verbal suggestions, hand signs, whistles and low technology devices utilizing radio waves.

[Steiner14]

Steve mentioned recently, the are trying to implement command-delays for CMN.

[Battlefront.com]

We are thinking of putting it in as an option for WeGo play. It makes no sense for RealTime since there are natural forces at work there which, in fact, the Command Delays are artificially trying to replicate.

The Command Delays are one of those features where either you like 'em or you hate 'em. There's legitimate points on both sides from both a gameplay and realism standpoint. It's one reason why you don't see threads about this like you do for something like Quick Battles or (most recently) trenches. In fact, if anything the sporadic and rather short lived discussions about Command Delays seems to indicate to us that most people are content to not have them. Which is why we are thinking along the lines of adding them back in as an option.

Steve

[undead reindeer cavalry]

good to hear that command delays might return as a WEGO option. i realize you folks are still just thinking about it, but are you planning to make the delay system utilize the fancy chain of command system of Shock Force? so if a given platoon has a radio, it may have shorter command delays for example?

now that i am speaking, or rather typing, i want to inform the world that since 1980ies i have enjoyed tactical wargames that have strong command delay systems (as an example of one such ancient computer wargame; Panzer Strike and the command point system in which many turns could pass without you being able to adjust given orders). i get twisted satisfaction when it takes a while for my men to follow my orders as it adds another dimension to the battle. somehow it feels more realistic to me, though of course in reality it's just my highly subjective, if not almost private, obsession.

[Lurker765]

I'm not so sure about the real time having natural forces at work to replace Command Delays. Can't you just pause every two seconds and issue new commands to everyone which makes it even worse than WEGO where you must wait longer to issue new orders?

It seems like the commander in real time has even more micromanagement and reaction than a WEGO commander does.

[Redwolf]

I kind of liked the delays but they were underengineed.

Game start, the first turn, shouldn't have a delay (suggestion: no delay at start of first turn).

Moving down a road, even if it involves multiple waypoints, shouldn't add delay. Suggestion: additional waypoints plotted into the same kind of terrain, with a contiguous connection to the last tile, don't add delay. Or go back to not add delay by waypoint. I don't think the CMBB system was actually better than CMBO in this regard.

These two factors combined could have to see a couple T-34, which start out on a road, have a 180 seconds (3 turns) delay before moving, and just moving down the road they start on. In a 25 turn battle. People got around it to defer plotting additional waypoints later, which is just useless busywork for the player with no improvement in realism. I'd say drop the additional delay by waypoint.

[Battlefront.com]

Lurker765,

I'm not so sure about the real time having natural forces at work to replace Command Delays. Can't you just pause every two seconds and issue new commands to everyone which makes it even worse than WEGO where you must wait longer to issue new orders?

Such people shouldn't be playing RealTime because it's counter productive. Sometimes I feel like a gun manufacturer who is being sued by survivors of self inflicted handgun wounds... "I put the gun to my head, I pulled the trigger, and I barely survived to tell my tale! So now I'm suing to make guns safer!"

Command Delays in RealTime would be a disaster. WeGo has an enforced pause where the player, like it or not, has a chance to review the entire battle plan, individual unit actions, and then... if desired, go back and redo everything to optimize it based on some other idea that just occurred to them. There's no choice in this for the player, therefore the player naturally presumes that this gives him an excuse to micromanage things. RealTime gamers are there to experience the thrills and challenges of increased battlefield chaos, so they are inherently uninterested in imposing unrealistic order on the battlefield. It's counter to why they are playing it in RealTime to begin with.

It seems like the commander in real time has even more micromanagement and reaction than a WEGO commander does.

Perhaps true in theory, not true in reality. In reality someone who is intent on micromanaging to his heart's content plays WeGo, not RealTime. To keep on with the firearms analogy, it's like saying that if you put an automatic handgun into one person's hand and a knife into another person's hand, that the person with the automatic handgun will kill more people than the one with the knife. That's only true if the guy with the handgun wants to do that. If he doesn't want to harm anybody, then his body count is zero. A guy with a knife who wants to stab as many people as he can before getting taken down can will win every time. In fact, he can surpass the body count of an automatic handgun if so motivated (as can be seen with the rash of stabbings in Japan) because it doesn't need to be reloaded.

In fact, remember the performance problem we had in v1.10? Remember that it was almost always WeGo related? This proved to us what we've been saying all along... WeGoers actively micromanage more than RealTimers. If this weren't true then the performance problem would have bit RealTimers just as hard. Or, if they really did micromanage more than WeGoers (which is what Lurker765 proposed as a possibility), then the performance issue would have been worse.

So yes... in theory a RealTime gamer can micromanage more than a WeGoer... but in reality that is extremely unlikely. Therefore, the WeGoers are the ones who "need" to have some imposed delays while the RealTimers voluntarily accept far less control all on their own.

Redwolf,

Yes, the Command Delays would use the C2 system. Even CMx1's system did, but we were generous with it since that since the system itself was fairly simplistic. However, for gameplay reasons we will probably have to go easy on that as well.

Steve

[Rocky Balboa]

I currently use the pause command extensively for coordinating fires and doing such things as mounting and dismounting troops within the same turn. I'm concerned that adding command delays to WEGO will make the pause command less effective. Any one else concerned about this?

[Migo441]

Count me in the group who likes command delays. I appreciate the additional layers of complexity, i.e., difficulties of planning or rapid changes of orders, different levels of responsiveness for different troop qualities, etc...

As others have said, the new C&C net is a natural fit to build from.

Great to have it as an option if possible.

[Lurker765]

Lurker765,

Such people shouldn't be playing RealTime because it's counter productive. Sometimes I feel like a gun manufacturer who is being sued by survivors of self inflicted handgun wounds... "I put the gun to my head, I pulled the trigger, and I barely survived to tell my tale! So now I'm suing to make guns safer!"

Command Delays in RealTime would be a disaster. WeGo has an enforced pause where the player, like it or not, has a chance to review the entire battle plan, individual unit actions, and then... if desired, go back and redo everything to optimize it based on some other idea that just occurred to them. There's no choice in this for the player, therefore the player naturally presumes that this gives him an excuse to micromanage things. RealTime gamers are there to experience the thrills and challenges of increased battlefield chaos, so they are inherently uninterested in imposing unrealistic order on the battlefield. It's counter to why they are playing it in RealTime to begin with.

Steve

Doesn't this go counter to the experience of CMSF? CMSF started off with no pauses in real time in elite mode and enough people complained that this restriction was entirely removed from the game (not even just put into a new mode, but completely removed). From what I can tell the vast majority of people playing real time pause the game and issue orders during at least some of the turns and often pause the game quite often when the action picks up.

If it is counter to why they are playing real time to begin with then why was the only mode that didn't allow pauses completely removed from the game?

I can somewhat understand your argument against command delays in real time if you can't pause. If you can pause then it seems your argument is much, much weaker than command delays in WEGO since this 'abuse' occurs even more often.

Anyway, this is not a big deal to me since I can choose not to play in RT if it bugs me and if I feel that command delays are an important component of reducing the overall 'god' powers of being the commander of every single unit.

[Lurker765]

Lurker765,

In fact, remember the performance problem we had in v1.10? Remember that it was almost always WeGo related? This proved to us what we've been saying all along... WeGoers actively micromanage more than RealTimers. If this weren't true then the performance problem would have bit RealTimers just as hard. Or, if they really did micromanage more than WeGoers (which is what Lurker765 proposed as a possibility), then the performance issue would have been worse.

Steve

I don't think this actually proves anything. It proves that WEGOers stacked a lot of commands to execute at the same second since they have no choice in the matter. When playing WEGO you have no choice about what second you can issue orders since they all occur at the same second at the beginning of the turn.

In real time mode you can give a slew of commands to some units on second 1, unpause, zoom over to a bunch of units, pause and give commands, etc. All in all, you get the same number of commands issued over a 60 second period but they aren't all slamming the CPU at the exact same second and the load is more spread out rather than uneven lumps. The expensive point of calculating things is spread out and less noticeable impact occurs due to the player pausing the game every few seconds.

Having a consistent load leads to better frame rates as opposed to having uneven distributions since the low CPU times don't get you as much benefit as the high CPU times does harm to the playing experience.

I don't think that I micromanage differently whether I am playing WEGO or RT. I micromanage in different aspects of time which greatly impacts the stacking of orders and computations necessary.

[McIvan]

I enjoyed and appreciated the command delay system, even when working against me, because it felt right.....giving a real sense of differentiation between troop qualities and morale states. I thought it was very elegantly implemented....would be nice to see it back.

The suggestion about no command delay on the first turn is a good one, wish to second that.

While we're at it, a working vehicle "follow" command would be nice too, for those twisty roads?

[Steiner14]

IMO WEGO without command delays is like a person without character.

[James Crowley]

Anyway, this is not a big deal to me since I can choose not to play in RT if it bugs me and if I feel that command delays are an important component of reducing the overall 'god' powers of being the commander of every single unit.

Totally agree.

If the AI can't be made to control out-of-command units (which I accept that it can't), then delays are a fairly easy way to limit the unrealistc abilty to have instant control over all of your units.

As for RT v WEGO. I don't play SF as such but I did try out a scenario in real time and missed being able to see all of those little 'wow' things that I loved while playing CMBB and CMAK in WEGO.

Its probably just me but I can't overcome the feeling that RT in wargames, whose unit scale is bigger than a squad, is hard work, stressful (but not in a fun way), and no more realistic than WEGO.

[McAuliffe]

I don't care if my pixeltruppen suffer from delay. The main point is, that I shouldn't go through the repetitive manipulation of plotting way points for each and every element of my platoon, that will go anyway to the same spot. Can we finally include a follow-the- leader command?

[flamingknives]

Select all, plot movement.

The AI tends to move via best available cover.

[Battlefront.com]

Command Delays are something I always liked. Not entirely realistic, not without their negative points, but overall I think a pretty good compromise system. However, I know for sure that not everybody thinks that way because we definitely heard a couple of earfulls about it over the past years. Compare this to the Blue Bar stuff And like I said, in the year and half since CM:SF has been out this has been one of the least discussed areas of complaint. To me this says that a lot of people don't really miss them, or don't miss them a lot.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

Lurker765,

Doesn't this go counter to the experience of CMSF?

Not at all. Pause was added to Elite Mode because without it there was no chance to pause the game at all, which was found to be far too extreme. It's not some black and white issue as you are trying to paint it. The Elite guys weren't saying "we want Pause so we can use it every 60 seconds". All they were saying is "occasionally I want to Pause, so please let me".

From what I can tell the vast majority of people playing real time pause the game and issue orders during at least some of the turns and often pause the game quite often when the action picks up.

Sure, I do too. But when I pause it is usually very brief, limited to a portion of the battle, and unpaused as soon as possible because the whole point of RealTime is to be immersed in the combat and not be pulled out of it.

I would guess that in a 30 turn battle of a decent size the average WeGoer is paused for at least 90 minutes for a total game time of 30 minutes. That's an average of 3 minutes per turn. I would guess the same battle would take 45 minutes to play out in RealTime.

Again, this is not to say that one is better than the other. That's a stupid argument for either side to make. But to say that people who play RealTime are "paused" for as much time as WeGoers... I very, very seriously doubt it.

I can somewhat understand your argument against command delays in real time if you can't pause. If you can pause then it seems your argument is much, much weaker than command delays in WEGO since this 'abuse' occurs even more often.

Nope, your position is the weak one here because you're forcing a WeGo behavior pattern on RealTime game players. It just doesn't work that way, so your premiss is off base.

I don't think this actually proves anything. It proves that WEGOers stacked a lot of commands to execute at the same second since they have no choice in the matter. When playing WEGO you have no choice about what second you can issue orders since they all occur at the same second at the beginning of the turn.

Ah, but what you've said is that RealTimers pause and micromanage things as much, in fact more, than WeGoers. Therefore, when they unpause there should have been the sort of massive performance hit that some WeGoers got for issuing even less Commands. Unless...

In real time mode you can give a slew of commands to some units on second 1, unpause, zoom over to a bunch of units, pause and give commands, etc. All in all, you get the same number of commands issued over a 60 second period but they aren't all slamming the CPU at the exact same second and the load is more spread out rather than uneven lumps. The expensive point of calculating things is spread out and less noticeable impact occurs due to the player pausing the game every few seconds.

And then guess what? You have "natural" Command Delays Thanks for making my point for me so well

I don't think that I micromanage differently whether I am playing WEGO or RT. I micromanage in different aspects of time which greatly impacts the stacking of orders and computations necessary.

I know I do things COMPLETELY different between WeGo and RealTime. In WeGo I make sure every unit is doing something productive and give them enough Commands (if moving) that they will definitely remain in motion for several turns. In RealTime I tend to give some units rather short sets of Commands and not so much as look at my other units. When the Commands run out I tend to look around and decide what to do next. I do this without Pausing most of the time. In fact, I feel guilty if I have the game Paused so I rush what I'm doing, limit what I do, and unpause as soon as possible.

Guys... those of you who play RealTime exclusively, do you do it to exercise more control than you would have in WeGo? Roughly how much longer does it take for you to finish a game vs. the realtime clock of the game play. Above I estimated that a 30 minute scenario takes about 90 minutes to play in WeGo. Do WeGoers disagree with that?

Steve

[Dietrich]

In light of how long it takes (or can take) to call in artillery or air support, I think general command delays would make sense. As it is, the closest thing I see to any sort of command delay is when, for example, I tell a tank of mine to area-fire on a certain spot and there's a pause (a brief one) before the turret swings around and brings the cannon to bear on that area.

Command delays -- insofar as they would be fairly short for Elite units and fairly long for Conscript units -- would help distinguish the men from the boys, so to speak. For example, a Green T-62 crew ordered to area-fire on a building 800m away at 10 o'clock might take, say a dozen seconds before the turret started traversing, whereas a Crack M1A2 crew would take only a few seconds, i.e., the time it would take to bark "gunner - 10 o'clock - second-floor balcony - 800 - HE - fire!" This is how it could be for area fire. I suppose the delay(s) would be less for spotted targets -- that is, if a T-62 spotted an Abrams, it would bring its cannon to bear on it more readily than if the gunner were responding to a 'fire on the indicated area' order by the TC.

[Lethaface]

For me it depends a bit on the scenario (playing excl. RT except for PBEM), but i think RT is definately less micro. Letting the action unfold without too many pauses generally has my preference

However you do gets to order actions when things really mess up, even without pausing but its easy to 'forget' another unit who gets then teared up

Very realistic and action intense

[Wrath of Dagon]

I agree command delays are important to distinguish different training levels. It still feels weird not to have a delay at all, but I rationalize it by imagining that American troops are really well trained. The other important factor is that without command delays, there's no penalty for changing your orders once they're already being carried out.

[McIvan]

Command Delays are something I always liked. Not entirely realistic, not without their negative points, but overall I think a pretty good compromise system. However, I know for sure that not everybody thinks that way because we definitely heard a couple of earfulls about it over the past years. Compare this to the Blue Bar stuff And like I said, in the year and half since CM:SF has been out this has been one of the least discussed areas of complaint. To me this says that a lot of people don't really miss them, or don't miss them a lot.

Steve

Weeeeeeellll......that could be because crossover players are outnumbered by new players who don't know what they're missing

I'd miss it. I thought it really worked well. I know you don't have it in CMSF, but I don't care enough about CMSF to argue about it....I'm just not really a moderns fan.

It's not a deal breaker though, far from it, but it is a nice piece of design and one of the things that made CMBB/AK stand out from other games I'd played. Don't ditch it if it works unless there's something better to replace it!

Ta

[akd]

I agree command delays are important to distinguish different training levels. It still feels weird not to have a delay at all, but I rationalize it by imagining that American troops are really well trained. The other important factor is that without command delays, there's no penalty for changing your orders once they're already being carried out.

But then there's a penalty for stopping an order that is being carried out in a stupid and unintended way by the AI. Maybe the pause, stop and seek cover button commands could be free of command delays?