Command Delay In CM:N?

[Redwolf]

Whatever you do, if command delays are in it should be the CMBO model with no additional delay by waypoint.

This model did the penalties for low experience and suppressed units well enough.

The CMBB/CMAK model with additional delay for waypoints was severely underdeveloped and was overall worse, realism-wise, fun-wise and player workload wise (deferred waypointing).

[Sergei]

If you do, can you make it an one time upfront delay? Like 10 sec for normal, 15 sec for green, etc... and not relate it to the complexity of the movement? That way you still have your monkey wrench but I can order around a bend without cursing. Hell make the delay random for all I care.

What?!? That would only make players plot complex million-waypoints-in-one-chain orders. Planning takes time in real life, and complex plans take lots of time to come up with.

I think minor movements should get a free pass, so for instance a team caught under fire in the open wouldn't need a delay for moving 10 metres to better cover, but more than one such movement in chain would still get a delay to prevent gamey abuse. Short movements after and between longer ones could also come without additional delays, which would help when maneuvering around tight corners. So you might give a unit four waypoints, but only two of them are long etappes, the other two are too short to cost delays.

[Sergei]

I can only speak for myself, but I was playing against my friend the next room over and he was using that to exploit the hell out of my pee breaks :mad:

Use a bottle.

[thewood]

Using a bottle is gamey...go in your pants like Rommel.

[TheVulture]

What?!? That would only make players plot complex million-waypoints-in-one-chain orders. Planning takes time in real life, and complex plans take lots of time to come up with.

The problem is that the complexity of plans has precious little to do with the number of waypoints. Following a road (simple plan) in CMx1 could take a lot of waypoints. Moving 4 units in a platoon into correct positions relative to each other might only need 1 waypoint per unit but be conceptually much more complex (mutually supporting positions, timings etc.)

[akd]

The more complicated the orders though the longer the command delay.

The problem here, already pointed out, is that complicated CM orders do not necessarily translate into complicated real world orders. Unless the program is able to determine between the two (and that would be quite an AI feat), this is a big turn-off.

For example, ordering a unit to follow a road through a patch of woods to a bridge could involve many, many waypoints, with different movement orders at different waypoints (i.e. slow around curves, faster for straights, changing cover arcs repeatedly) just to accomplish what in the real world would be no more complex than saying "carefully drive down that road until you get to the bridge" and having the unit execute that simple command using standard doctrine in their movement.

Or imagine the complexity of orders necessary to make a unit execute the simple order "bring that treeline under fire as you approach it." Depending on the number of action spots the treeline occupies, you could have a very large number of waypoints spaced close together with new targeting commands at every waypoint to end up with asemi-realistic outcome. (In fact, new thread inbound on this topic).

Likewise, there is no way to differentiate between complex and simple order based solely on distance of movement. Driving down a straight road from one end of the map to the other is simpler than ordering a unit to deploy along a stream 100 yards ahead.

[Canada Guy]

I stand corrected and I agree somewhat. Yes, it is true that following a road does involve many multiple waypoints just to follow the curve in the road and no mater what (be it elite or conscript) it should be easy to say "Follow that road"!"

The other side of the coin though is that a player would create unrealistic waypoints for inferior troops (for a x second delay, shoot here, move here then shoot here and then orientate to here). This could also be alleviated by following some of the CMx1 design (e.g. no assault for conscript troops) or you get a command delay and this applies for 5 waypoints (as an example).

so

1. Include a command delay (maybe configurable/optional) that would factor in experience level, suppression level, in command or out of command, leadership bonus etc. but do not factor in the number of waypoints or only factor them in slightly.

2. Include the red/black lines for in command or out of command (but make this configurable/optional) so old farts of 40 can see at a glance where the sub-units are without having to hunt and peck until it shows up.

[Cid250]

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

I want command delays back!... even if they are just an option in WeGo, because WeGo fits better the realim conditions for a field commander, and i love to play only that way.

In short: Add another supporter of commands delays.

[Battlefront.com]

Yes, it's definitely true that the waypoint penalty system has some serious flaws. I will remind you, however, that the penalty ramped up so that small amounts of waypoints didn't matter as much as large amounts.

But the overall point that complex game instructions aren't necessarily the same as complex real life instructions. We knew that before we made a single line of code in CMBB

However, there was a reason for implementing the waypoint delays. And was the CMBO system penalized a unit for being what it was, not what it did. A really crappy unit should be able to move fast out of danger instead of sitting around waiting for an artificial clock to tick down. What the crappy unit shouldn't be able to do is go and execute a complex series of movements like going down a street, busting into a house, going to the 3rd story NW corner room, and put down Area Fire on an enemy position that (related to the other big discussion right now) that wasn't within LOS/LOF of the unit when moving. Oh, and to do this equally well as an Elite unit. It's just nonsense.

Soooooo... the thing I've been thinking about for a while now is coming up with something different. Still delay based, but perhaps leveraging the differences in how waypoints work in CMx2 vs. CMx1. Here's a rough idea...

There is a random start time penalty based initially on overall unit quality (basically, all of the unit's inherent "soft factors"). The randomness, however, is quite broad and *not* shown to the player. So the player has ZERO idea if their little crappy quality pixeltruppen will go off on their way 52 seconds, 11 second, or 33 seconds. That ought to frustrate a lot of unrealistically coordinated attacks right there with nothing else added

Certain things assigned to waypoints, such as Face Commands, different types of Combat Commands, etc. impose a delay at that particular waypoint. So yup, you're unit is on the move and everything is going fine. It can follow a very complex set of movement waypoints without any disruption. However, when it comes to a waypoint with a new instruction, the unit fumbles around before getting it together and moving on.

Alternatively, and I don't know if this is technically practical, instructions tagged to a Waypoint won't necessarily take effect right away. So while movement keeps on going, the unit might not actually start executing something like a new Target Arc for perhaps 13 seconds or something like that. And again, no information to the player.

Obviously the better the unit, the closer to perfection the execution will be.

Thoughts?

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

Oh, and another idea is that the initial delay is compounded/mitigated by the type of Command used. FAST, for example, represents the leader yelling "go-go-go!!!!!!!!" so the instruction set is generally shouted with urgency and that tends to kick even the slowpokes into gear. Therefore, for FAST we might want to lower the delay compared to something like SLOW, which implies instructions about being cautious, reducing noise, paying attention to something, etc. In other words, generally speaking a more complicated instruction set to get the unit on its way.

Steve

[Redwolf]

Obviously the better the unit, the closer to perfection the execution will be.

Thoughts?

Sounds like something that might be a lot of trouble to get right, and you'd probably only discover after an initial release and you might take a beating for it.

At this point I think it's probably best for you to release CMx2:Normandy without command delays so that you don't get fried if anything goes wrong. Or if you didn't do anything wrong and some random reviewer just doesn't like it just because.

Then, in the first fiddling patch (after emergency patches, if needed) you put something in that looks well thought out and people can have a look. That gives you an environment where sales aren't affected if you screw it up in 1.00, and most of the hardcore wargamer who care about this stuff will use patches. The mainstreamer reviewers are long gone and they wouldn't think that there's anything wrong without command delays in the first place.

Overall an unnecessary risk. I'd put in CMBO (not CMBB) delays, maybe, but if you plan to do something more sophisticated in a patch I'd put nothing at all at first so that people don't cry bloody murder that the "superior" delay system has been removed.

Just my recommendation.

There's also an apparent rift between what the Beta testers thing is cool and what the forum crowd thinks, and both are removed from mainstream reviewers. So just because your beta testers like it wouldn't mean you won't get beaten up. Why not release something that is safe on one hand, and plays snappy for the twitcher crowd on the other hand and then go from there?

[kipanderson]

Steve,

Units do need to get out of trouble immediately… as they would in reality… so as you say..FAST is Go..Go.. and they are off immediately regardless of quality… but if you then add a QUICK command to the squad when it is round the corner then your quality delays may kick in. But don’t get too carried away… .

Remember CM has many “unrealistic” frustrations for the squad commander too.. he cannot give as detailed orders as quickly as in real life. So don’t make it too much like running in nee deep mud….

“The” unrealistic ease of play is the God like knowledge of the single controlling mind over an entire battlefield. The lack of chaos and the FOW that goes with it. This will be superbly dealt with when we get CoPlay in later games.

In most situations the squad commander in CM already as far more limited options than in real life. For very obvious and unavoidable reasons. Do not make life even more difficult for the squad commander. This is not where CM is unrealistically easy. CM is unrealistically easy for the company commander… and CoPlay will deal with that problem very nicely when the time comes .

All the best,

Kip.

[dan/california]

I like the idea of it being random, I like the idea of it being very quality dependent. Making godlike coordination harder will improve overall realism overall.

Since the game already has some AI to determine cover, and the direction of the known enemy it would make a lot of sense to have longer command delay when ordering units into obvious (to the unit) danger. This may be such a big AI hair-ball as to be undoable but makes sense to me if possible. Still within the framework of a system that has both quality and random elements.

If the presence of the enemy is unknown to them, of course they march out to a VERY realistic result like good little pixeltruppen. This happens now in CMSF when you get LOF to the back of a building before you start blowing the front of it off. Had a great moment like that in the second battle of the Marines Campaign. It briefly fooled me into thinking I knew what I was doing.

[akd]

Certain things assigned to waypoints, such as Face Commands, different types of Combat Commands, etc. impose a delay at that particular waypoint. So yup, you're unit is on the move and everything is going fine. It can follow a very complex set of movement waypoints without any disruption. However, when it comes to a waypoint with a new instruction, the unit fumbles around before getting it together and moving on.

Face commands are an excellent example of an order that is often given to correct AI stupidity rather than what would be a complex command issued in the real world. A unit that exits a house under fire should not run to the exposed wall of another building and stop staring at that wall facing away from the enemy (I find the AI opponent in this situation all the time). Likewise, unit given a move order should logically face where they last saw the enemy (or have reason to suspect the enemy) once they stop. In each case, a face command must be issued by the player to get the unit to do exactly what would not even require an order at the squad level to do, face in the direction of the threat. I'm sure you understand that a huge amount of CM orders are only necessary because the AI is not perfectly human and can't carry out simple doctrine or logical human behavior in most circumstances, especially when doing anything other than stationary defense.

If the point is that a unit is of too poor quality to carry out doctrine, then why allow the order in the first place?

For example, a quality tank platoon would not require orders from on high to travel down a road with each tank covering a different sector. After receiveing an order to travel down a road, they would cover different sectors while carrying this out because that is what they were trained to do. Ordering them not do what they have trained and practiced to do would actually add complexity to the order: "Wait, you want us to go down that road, but you don't want us to use the normal tactics we were trained in while doing so? Hold on, this is going to take awhile to explain to my subordinates." Yet having the AI carry out this simple doctrine on its own is probably near impossible, so there is no logical reason to punish the player with any time penalties for giving complex orders to get a unit to do what it should know how to do in the circumstances.

Now say you want to give the same order to a poor quality platoon. Your order is simple. You just want them to move down that road. You would also like them to do so the same way any well-trained unit would, so they don't all go and get killed in the process. Is a time delay really the appropiate penalty to impose because they have not trained and do not know how to implement this order as you would like them to? Does it take 30 seconds for them to learn what it might have taken months for a high-quality unit to learn to do? Why not simply disallow them from receiving cover arc orders, or not allow them to use them while on the move? Or maybe allow them to receive the order, but have a high chance of them simply disregarding it or bungling it?

All that said, I do support more realistic simulation of command and more real world limitations for lower quality units (Panther Games' Airborne Assault series are my other favorite wargames next to CM). I'm just not sure time delays tied to order "complexity" is the way to go unless there is a way to distinguish between truly complex tactical orders and "scripting" via multiple orders to create logical behavior the AI is not capable of producing.

[c3k]

I agree with akd's analysis: adding delays to execute target/facing/firing orders at waypoints does not seem to be a viable solution.

A delay PRIOR to commencing the very first in a string of movement orders would be practical. The more complex the order, the longer the delay.

If I want to create two movement orders to move from A to B to C, I would have two options. On Turn 1 I create a command, "Move to B, Move to C". The delay would be incurred. Or, I could do this: Turn 1 creat a command "Move to B." The delay would be approximately half of the previous. Then, Turn 2, "Move to C". The 1/2 delay would again be incurred. That way the total delay is approximately the same whether I break the move in parts or just do the whole movement.

Thoughts?

[Battlefront.com]

OK, good points.

Understand, however, that delays are one of the things we have some control over. If you pick apart things enough, as AKD did, the flaws in the use of time delays (as a concept) becomes pretty evident pretty quickly. Same thing when trying to restrict certain things like what Commands a unit can carry out. A crappy tank platoon should still be able to cover different sectors, however they are less likely to do it as ordered.

So the "real" solution here is to have direct player Commands disobeyed when logical and reasonable to do so. But oh boy does that get us into a barrel full of worms Just look at the reaction players have when the pathing AI makes even small errors, or when a unit does something unwise when routing!! Egads, you'd think that the game reached out and kicked the players in the gonads for all the pain it appeared to have caused them

There are two primary problems with units disobeying Commands, beyond player rejection:

1. Under what circumstances is it appropriate to have units disobey orders?

2. When they do disobey an order, what specifically do they do in its place?

The problem with both of these, from our perspective, is that to do this in a way that the medium sized group who would love this feature (in theory, at least!) would insist on both of these concepts being executed fairly well on a consistent basis. That means a ton of AI programming and that is definitely nothing we can handle for the foreseeable future.

So we're stuck with rather a limited range of penalties for unrealistic behavior. Since our best of all worlds possible outcome is a fairly minor mitigation of God control, it seems we're going to be limited to more-or-less "gamey" solutions with significant flaws. Having said that, not all concepts are equally flawed, so we still have a job to do in terms of picking the right abstractions to use and avoiding, like the plague, ones which are counter productive. There's faaaaaaaaar more of the latter than the former.

Steve

[Redwolf]

I can only re-state my recommendation not to do any of this in Normandy 1.0.

It's the safe thing to do. Whatever you do, there might be serious drawbacks, realism or fun issues that make it through beta testing. The magazine reviewers, who usually don't know the concept of delays in the first place, can only write better things about it without command delays and no order overwrite. As do casual gamers.

If you then enable it in some early patch after emergency patches everybody is sitting there with a cup of tea or beer giving it a fair shot, knowing that they can go back to the previous patch if they don't like it. You will get a much better evaluation out of this and won't have the forum turn into the game.

[TheVulture]

On a tangentially related note (and not entirely serious) why not 'solve' the problem of co-ordinated movement the same as for co-ordinated fire? When you have a unit selected, you can only see the moves of units that have had chance to transmit that information through the C3 system, as with relative spotting. So you can co-ordinate with units close by since you can see their waypoints, but not with distant ones since you don't get to see theirs until some time later.

[MarkEzra]

On a tangentially related note (and not entirely serious) why not 'solve' the problem of co-ordinated movement the same as for co-ordinated fire? When you have a unit selected, you can only see the moves of units that have had chance to transmit that information through the C3 system, as with relative spotting. So you can co-ordinate with units close by since you can see their waypoints, but not with distant ones since you don't get to see theirs until some time later.

Perhaps add "New Order" to the unit status scroll to describe the units next action. Something like this:

"Spotting"

"New Order"

"Moving"

"Spotting"

The lack of unit moving is understood as not having recv'd and order. Just like "cowering" inserted into the status scroll is indicative of not following any commands at this time. Creation of delays to increase Realism must have an explanation. You'll avoid the "Troops don't follow orders" harangue... or at least point out that no orders received means no orders followed

[stikkypixie]

Perhaps add "New Order" to the unit status scroll to describe the units next action. Something like this:

"Spotting"

"New Order"

"Moving"

"Spotting"

The lack of unit moving is understood as not having recv'd and order. Just like "cowering" inserted into the status scroll is indicative of not following any commands at this time. Creation of delays to increase Realism must have an explanation. You'll avoid the "Troops don't follow orders" harangue... or at least point out that no orders received means no orders followed

They have that "planning" status don't they?

[Battlefront.com]

I do agree that this is rapidly becoming something larger than we can afford to tackle at the moment. Still interesting to discuss However, I don't think it will be much of a problem to put in an optional CMBO style "delay up front, that's it" sort of system. Certainly is limited in terms of causing other problems, though of course it is also limited in terms of improving realism.

We'll ponder this further

Steve

[Malaspina]

Treacherously resurrecting this old thread while you Americans are digesting your stuffed turkeys.

Interesting read.

I side with the command-delay lovers. I've learnt the hard way in CMSF (WeGo) that giving precise commands at every waypoint (esp. area fire, pause and smoke orders) is critical. I understand this is realistic in modern warfare where assaults are planned second by second, but what about WWII?

I would expect troops to hesitate, blunder or outright disobey orders more frequently back then, especially when outside the command radius. It would make my (grog-)playing experience much funner!

What is the result of your ponderings some 9 months later?

[moneymaxx]

I think a command delay is a must, especially for RT not WEGO, not to punish complex orders (since no plan survives the contact with the enemy) but to lower the responsiveness of the units.

Imagine your tank platoon being ambushed playing in real time, you press pause, order all units to lay indirect fire on suspected enemy positions and retreat. Or imagine your squad being attacked by an mg and you have a tank 1000 meters away, again, you just press pause and order the tank to lay indirect fire on the position of the mg. After you press pause again, all those orders are executed immediately.

In a modern setting this is somewhat believable due to modern training and communications equipment, command delays are therefore not really an issue and that's why I think that there were not to many complaints.

In a WWII setting it would seem rather odd. A buttoned up tank platoon of T34 without radios would sometimes not even notice that they are in an ambush since they might a) not see that a tank has been hit and have no means of telling the others if they did. To see them stop instantly, return fire and retreat would be highly unrealistic. The tank in the second example most probably would never receive an order to fire at all.

Therefore IMHO there should be at least some delay in RT especially for indirect fire. In WEGO that's not such a big problem since you have to wait for your turn anyway.

[tyrspawn]

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

Thank you.. please include it as an OPTION - not a basic feature of the game.

[Bigduke6]

AKD is dead on here.

As some one who plays CMSF almost exclusively red, and alot of that wego, I can say with great confidence troops worse than veteran already are hard to shift. Since Steve says all WW2 forces are essentially CMSF red troops in terms of C3, I suggest BFI ve careful about building even more delay and friction into troop behavior, especially for what would be a relatively simple instruction in RL.

Like AKD says, following a road is not complicated in RL, and as us CM1 veterans know it can be enormously confusing for CM1 troops. Anything else requiring a precise route, staying in a bit of cover for instance, is the same problem.

As it stands now, the game makes infantry stop and collect itself at every waypoint (thereby IMO making it an artificially better artillery target, which is a separate issue), so if you want to penalise WEGO micromanagers as far as infantry is concerned that is in there already.

I'm not clear whether the infantry collection routine is faster or slower given a particular troop quality. I suspect not, it seems to be just a function of how spread out the troopies are.

Here are a couple of suggestions, for what it's worth:

- The better the infantry quality, the faster the rally at a given waypoint

- Tie waypoint count to unit quality, and set a limit on waypoints a unit may plot, before it starts experiencing delays.

The idea here is the better the unit, the more waypoints it gets to plot at a given point in time, if WEGO within a given minute. Since waypoints introduce delay, the net result will be excellent units can execute complicated routes over distance, immediately, while crappy units will do the same thing more slowly.

- Make it so that the better the unit, the less time it needs to spend sitting at a given waypoint, before it goes on to the next waypoint. Or the crappier it is, the longer it must sit.

- This is pretty much a different aspect of the above, but in terms of infantry, make it so that the better the infantry, the less concentrated it needs to be at a given waypoint, before it goes on to the next waypoint. This will have the net effect of allowing good infantry to spread out more, and at the same time make poor infantry bunch up more, which to my mind would be a very realistic effect.

My two kopecks', anyway.

The problem here, already pointed out, is that complicated CM orders do not necessarily translate into complicated real world orders. Unless the program is able to determine between the two (and that would be quite an AI feat), this is a big turn-off.

For example, ordering a unit to follow a road through a patch of woods to a bridge could involve many, many waypoints, with different movement orders at different waypoints (i.e. slow around curves, faster for straights, changing cover arcs repeatedly) just to accomplish what in the real world would be no more complex than saying "carefully drive down that road until you get to the bridge" and having the unit execute that simple command using standard doctrine in their movement.

Or imagine the complexity of orders necessary to make a unit execute the simple order "bring that treeline under fire as you approach it." Depending on the number of action spots the treeline occupies, you could have a very large number of waypoints spaced close together with new targeting commands at every waypoint to end up with asemi-realistic outcome. (In fact, new thread inbound on this topic).

Likewise, there is no way to differentiate between complex and simple order based solely on distance of movement. Driving down a straight road from one end of the map to the other is simpler than ordering a unit to deploy along a stream 100 yards ahead.