A worthy foe - The difference between CMSF and CMx1's

[Chad Harrison]

Sure, those are all places where there was ground fighting, but *I* think a significant portion of them could be discarded, since they are all repetitions on a theme of attack-a-heavily-dug-in-and-essentially-immobile-defence. Once you've done one - or a dozen - of those ...

Which is why I have never, in seriousness at least, asked BFC if they were going to visit the Pacific. From about 1943 onward, the Pacific became the Japanese dug into fortifications (both natural and man made) and us/Brits/Commonwealth assaulting them. No much room there for a tactical game, especially within the scope of CM.

It's a nice wish, but honestly, within the scope of CM, I would much rather see CM:Normandy 2 than the Pacific. Anyways, WitP fulfills my fix for the Pacific.

BTW - was there any actual fighting in the Aleuts? I thought it was an unopposed landing, an unnoticed withdrawal, followed by another unopposed occupation?

Outside of the air and naval (both minor) battles, the Battle for Attu was actually a tough one. And embarrassing for our troops who outnumbered the Japanese many times over, but still took weeks to clear the island due to the weather and terrain. Our casualties were around 1,500 total. Compared to other Pacific islands, this was a light cost and the theater was a sideshow to start with.

[Field Marshal Blücher]

Another vote for CM: Pacific for me!

[dan/california]

The real punishment for all sides in the Aleutians was being in the Aleutians. Perhaps the worst weather on earth.

[Chad Harrison]

The real punishment for all sides in the Aleutians was being in the Aleutians. Perhaps the worst weather on earth.

Reading about what it took to get a plane in the air, let alone fight, makes for an interesting read.

The South Pacific also falls under the same banner: fighting the climate and terrain as much as the enemy.

[Pvt. Ryan]

When CM:Normandy hits, I already know that it will be well beyond CM:BO in every level. Till then, I am still playing and still enjoying CM:SF and greatly looking forward to Brits.

Same here. My only hope is that CM:N replicates the "feel" of CM:BO. SM:SF feels so sterile to me, probably due to the desert environment. CM:AK was probably the same, but I didn't spend all of my time in the desert. I think what is missing is weather. The mist/fog in CMx1 really added to the atmosphere, literally and figuratively. CMx1 also didn't have as much of the one shot-one kill and "reach out and touch" element that CM:SF has. I'm looking forward to the temperate environment, lots of green, and weather with the cover and/or concealment that they provide. Combine this with relative spotting and 1:1 representation, and I think the game is going to be amazing.

[Battlefront.com]

Elmar,

Never asked for magic Steve.

But you are You're asking for everything you personally want in the game to be there already, which would be easy to do if we only had your one modest list in front of us. But each and every person on this Forum has his own list and I know, for sure, that it is different than yours. So we have to pick and choose and that means most things suggested here will not get into the game at all, ever. That means someone is going to be bummed out that their pet feature request isn't in. The only alternative is magic, because that would allow us to get everything in the game at once without anybody having to wait. As I said, we lack that capability.

But I just thought I should mention that at least so far, the slight of hand isn't doing it for me.

Slight of hand? What do you mean by that?

I really don't think I've ever been particularly demanding, except for that one thing and even in that my doggedness was at least two parts comedy to one part seriousness.

I understand, but you have to understand that I think your position is factually flawed. Your position is that we don't care about the "fluff" and keeping people "happy", but instead are focused on making a soulless simulation. I just listed off 10 things which disprove that theory. If I had the time I could list 100 more quite easily. Hell, I simply have to point out that CM is 3D and not 2D "chits" and I win the argument

Remember that no single feature request from a reasonable person is in and of itself unreasonable. The problem for us is we get hundreds of reasonable requests from reasonable people. We can't put them all in, no matter how passionate an individual is about his particular request. Expecting us to put in a personal suggestion ahead of all others is, actually, demanding.

Nonetheless, two years down the line too many features I loved in old titles , especially so called fluff, are still on the 'one day, some day' list. Just thought I'd mention it.

One of them (Kill Stats) is going into Normandy for sure, which was always the plan. The other (very detailed model damage) is on the very high priority list and might make it into Normandy. Considering the hundreds and hundreds of things we have been asked to do, you SHOULD be happy about this since the two things you have listed are ahead of almost all of them. What the detailed model damage stuff is NOT ahead of is something like Cherry Picking QBs, Kill Stats, and a host of other "fluff" things I'm keeping mum about for now.

I can't help but feel this is a glass half empty complaint. There is literally YEARS worth of very costly "fluff" and stuff in CM:SF, right now, to keep people "happy". No, a few of your personal favorites aren't in yet, but that doesn't negate the things which are in the game already.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

Bodkin,

One thing I'd like to see is a graphics update for explosions, I know it sounds superficial and gamey but at the moment we have one set of bmp's for every explosion type whether it be an arty round or tank blowing up. It would at least be nice to have a different set of bmp's for arty so that it gave the impression of earth, rock and debris erupting with a bit of black /grey smoke mixed in.

We have experimented with some APIs to get us better effects. It's on hold for now until we get some higher priority items into the game which can't be lived without, but for sure we're going to overhaul the boom-boom graphics very soon. Personally, I hope that if we don't get it into Normandy v1.0 it will be in a follow up patch at some point. It's the kind of thing that can be slipped into a patch (in fact, we did that with CM:SF's explosions a couple of times already).

Scipio.

The extended victory conditions are surely great, but a sad fact is that we now often go into the battle with only a vague idea about the goal - what is 100% a scenario design problem; but also with only a vague guess about the reasons for the end result. The result screen is in my opion much to simple to analyse the reasons for the result, or what could have done better, what is only partialy a scenario design problem. As an example are casualty thresholds. Okay, the result screen tells me if I have reach it or not - but this information is floating into vacuum. What is the preset treshold? What does it mean when I compare it with the casualty numbers in men and material?

This is actually how we want the system to work You shouldn't be able to say within a battle "oh boy, if I lose one more man I've had it". Instead you should be saying "damn, I lost another man... I need to make sure I don't lose any more because it jeopardizes my mission". If the scenario designer wants you to know the specific thresholds, he can do that easily enough by including it in the Briefing because he set those things in the Editor.

Thomm,

Second, better than having no stats at all because of UI, it would be to dump the kill stats (and perhaps even detailed kill information - who, which weapon, how, range, ...) into a text file. I suspect that is not possible, though, because it is not memorized internally (there is obviously no need to at present).

The new Kill Stats feature is more detailed than CMx1, but it's not going to track categories of individual soldier types killed. I'm not sure it's worth the effort to store and export that level of detail.

Chad Harrison.

Alright, alright. I will quit bugging you about it Steve. It's amazing, even on an internet forum where it is harder to get a read on how someone is feeling or reacting to what you are asking, I get the impression that I need to stop asking. You see if we were standing face to face and I kept bugging you about it, you would probably give me the same look my wife gives me whenever I bring up getting a new computer

Heh Actually, it's in interesting discussion to have from time to time. People, no matter what the topic is, have preferences for this or that. Often those preferences are completely irrational, or at the very least based on a complex web of personal reasons that make the resulting opinion extremely individualized.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with this and in fact it is necessary since we can't all be interested equally in the same way about everything all the time. That would be as impossible as it is boring The difference is to recognize that it is just personal opinion and that you get yourself onto slippery ground if you start trying to justify it beyond something directly comparable (i.e. realism of a particular weapon system) in an apples to apples way.

I was just playing CM:SF last night after playing CM:BB recently and this could not be more true. CMx2 is leaps and bounds beyond CMx1. No doubt about it. The BFC team has worked wonders with the system from both a technical and gameplay standpoint. Sure there are little things I miss (such as the kill stats), but those are small beans compared to the many things that we gained. Which is why I never bring up those small things and never participated in all those threads after CM:SF's release. Which would I rather have: 1 to 1 or kill stats? Hmmmmmm . . .

Exactly my point to Elmar I can tell you that if we felt that people would, overall, be more "happy" with kill stats instead of 1:1 we would have done that. I mean, a week or so's worth of combined efforts to make a kill stat feature vs. probably 2 or 3 man years' worth of work to do 1:1... it's really a no brainer choice IF the end results would produce the same level of "happiness". But there's no way that's the case. So in order to make all the resources available for the stuff that is already in the game we had to not make it available for some of the other stuff. We think we have our priorities in order.

Pvt Ryan,

Same here. My only hope is that CM:N replicates the "feel" of CM:BO.

Oh God, I hope not If all we did was replicate something we did over 10 years ago I'd see that as a massive failure! CM:Normandy should blow the doors off of the "feel" aspect of CMBO as well as the simulation aspect. Fortunately, I already know it will, so I'm not sweating it.

SM:SF feels so sterile to me, probably due to the desert environment. CM:AK was probably the same, but I didn't spend all of my time in the desert.

Which I think answers your own thought there. Deserts are, by their very definition, "sterile". If CM:SF or CMAK didn't give people that feeling then we'd have goofed up something rather fundamental. Or put another way, we purposefully worked towards CM:SF having a "sterile" environment because without it we wouldn't have had a believable arid setting. Conversely, the terrain in CM:Normandy will feel "lush" because that is what a temperate environment in that part of the world is supposed to feel like.

As a quick check of what I mean, pop open any decently varied map in CM:SF and then pop open one in CMAK. Not how much "richer" the environment is in CM:SF compared to CMAK, despite the fact that both have a "sterile" feel to them. Look at the details of the topography, variations of ground textures, complexity of built up areas, details of the trees, variety of things in one spot, etc. CMAK can't hold a candle to it, yet both environments have the same overall feel to them because both games were designed to portray a similar setting.

Now, open up a CM:SF map and a CMBO map and do the same thing. Technically CM:SF beats the buhjeeezus out of CMBO in terms of terrain detail in every way imaginable. But I bet the CMBO map will still feel "richer" to you in terms of the overall feel. But now imagine all of those CM:SF details and picture them being "Normandyized". There's no way that the CM: Normandy will feel "sterile", I'm sure of that. In fact, I think after you see CM: Normandy yourself you'll probably feel CMBO is "sterile" by comparison. Which it should because technically speaking, it is!

Combine this with relative spotting and 1:1 representation, and I think the game is going to be amazing.

Not to mention the "fluff" stuff like each vehicle of a particular type having more polygons in it than roughly 200 vehicles of the same type did in CMx1. As Elmar has said, these details DO matter. Which is why we've put so much effort into them.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

Oops! Double post. I'm such a noob sometimes

Steve

[ChrisND]

Any word on Exit victory conditions? The scenarios that featured these were often my favorites.

[Elmar Bijlsma]

Slight of hand? What do you mean by that?

ahem, I meant sleight of hand. It was a quip about you doing magic. Sleight of hand being what passes for magic in the real world. I was hinting that CMSF could pass for magic.

It was meant as a compliment even if it was double-shotted with a critique.

As for my pet peeves being personal: Clearly, no-one made me their spokesman. All I can do is give my opinion, and that is that I feel you don't rate the stuff that lets a player connect on an emotional level to the game as high as I think you should. Do with that as you will.

kill stats instead of 1:1

You mentioned apple v apple earlier so you must be an expert; which one is the orange in that sentence?

The new Kill Stats feature is more detailed than CMx1, but it's not going to track categories of individual soldier types killed. I'm not sure it's worth the effort to store and export that level of detail.

Unless it's too complicated could you try and give special mention to Zook/Schreck/Piat wielders? They sure were always on my short list of pain when assigning fire orders.

[Scipio]

I wonder if beach landing is in. Not most important for me, I guess, but anyway.

Rather more important for me : will bunkers and pillboxes be more realistic in regard of 3d model, armament, fire arcs etc. How about trenches (I don't mean the CMSF ditches )? Sandbag positions?

There's a nice page about pillboxes : http://www.fortiff.be/

Unfortunatly is in french...

[Elmar Bijlsma]

Nah, Steve has consistently said it's not even on the list. Too much beach specific work for too little pay off.

How much actual fighting was there on the beaches? Not that much, and little of it allowing the player much leeway gameplay wise. Get off the beach or die is pretty much it.

[Scipio]

Nah, Steve has consistently said it's not even on the list. Too much beach specific work for too little pay off.

How much actual fighting was there on the beaches? Not that much, and little of it allowing the player much leeway gameplay wise. Get off the beach or die is pretty much it.

As I said, not most important to me. Still would like to see better fortifications.

[Battlefront.com]

Elmar,

ahem, I meant sleight of hand. It was a quip about you doing magic. Sleight of hand being what passes for magic in the real world. I was hinting that CMSF could pass for magic.

It was meant as a compliment even if it was double-shotted with a critique.

Thanks, I think

As for my pet peeves being personal: Clearly, no-one made me their spokesman. All I can do is give my opinion, and that is that I feel you don't rate the stuff that lets a player connect on an emotional level to the game as high as I think you should. Do with that as you will.

If we rated this stuff any higher then we'd have an empty headed RTS game IMHO. We already spend more than half of our time, probably 2/3rds, doing things which can't in any way be considered purely "sim" related. But even with that massive effort we still can't get everything in that people want, even when those things are good ideas. It's simply impossible. But that has nothing to do with emphasis or desire.

You mentioned apple v apple earlier so you must be an expert; which one is the orange in that sentence?

I was making a direct comparison relative to your original statement that we don't pay enough attention to stuff that (as you just phrased it) "lets a player connect on an emotional level to the game". I was simply pointing out that if you think Kill Stats achieve that stated goal better than 1:1 infantry... well, frankly I find that rather odd. And in terms of emphasis of development, the man years spent doing features like 1:1 infantry is vastly more than the time it would take to do Kill Stats. Therefore, I could turn the argument around and say we didn't get ourselves distracted by fairly small things which "lets a player connect on an emotional level to the game" and instead focused on much bigger ones.

Unless it's too complicated could you try and give special mention to Zook/Schreck/Piat wielders? They sure were always on my short list of pain when assigning fire orders.

It might be possible, though it's not so clear cut since the weapons can be picked up again by another soldier. So you may kill Pvt. Johnston while he was manning a Bazooka, but Cpl. McHenry picked it up and killed your Marder quite dead. And what happens if you then kill Cpl. McHenry with the Bazooka, which is then picked up by Sgt. Crusher? Counting that 3 times gives the false impression you put two Bazookas out of action when in fact it's still in action with Sgt. Crusher.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

Elmar,

Nah, Steve has consistently said it's not even on the list. Too much beach specific work for too little pay off.

How much actual fighting was there on the beaches? Not that much, and little of it allowing the player much leeway gameplay wise. Get off the beach or die is pretty much it.

Correct. As interesting as beach landings would be, for a while, it's not worth our investment in them. It won't likely sell a single extra copy of Normandy, but it will certainly cost us a whole lot more to produce it. And people will tire of it fairly quickly.

BTW, as has been stated elsewhere the defensive works are being improved for Normandy. Both the variety and how they are used. Another one of those win-win examples that makes the game both more fun to play and more realistic from a simulation standpoint.

Steve

[ChrisND]

Any word on Exit victory conditions? The scenarios that featured these were often my favorites.

*COUGH**COUGH*

[dan/california]

Are you coughing because you know something, or because you don't?

Bloody beta testers, can I be one? Please?

[Lethaface]

Itz the weeeeeeeed men

[ChrisND]

Are you coughing because you know something, or because you don't?

Bloody beta testers, can I be one? Please?

Actually it was more of a pathetic begging for information cough.

[ASL Veteran]

BTW - was there any actual fighting in the Aleuts? I thought it was an unopposed landing, an unnoticed withdrawal, followed by another unopposed occupation?

Your question was already answered, but if you are interested in more info this link gives a decent general history of the battle with a lot of "further reading" material at the end.

http://www.history.army.mil/brochures/aleut/aleut.htm

[ASL Veteran]

Which is why I have never, in seriousness at least, asked BFC if they were going to visit the Pacific. From about 1943 onward, the Pacific became the Japanese dug into fortifications (both natural and man made) and us/Brits/Commonwealth assaulting them. No much room there for a tactical game, especially within the scope of CM.

Jon S is generally pretty specific so I'm going to assume by Pacific he literally meant Pacific Islands etc and not China Burma India. Regarding British troops though there was a rather large Japanese invasion of India in March 1944 resulting in the battle of Imphal and Kohima. China, Burma, and the Phillipines had full on city fights between Japanese troops and the allies. It's really just a matter of if the Japanese forces are 'interesting' enough I guess because you can get basically any kind of fighting that you want out of it. Temperate, Jungle, Arctic, city fights, even some tank battles, it's all basically there. The thing about CM is that the player is in command of the Japanese infantry and man for man I would stack the courage of the individual Japanese infantryman up against that of any other nation. Their equipment is a bit sub par and their leadership is probably a little sub par too. You as the player don't have to deal with the leadership thing much though except as modifiers etc and their big squads do have some decent firepower with those little knee mortars. Pretty easy to get tree bursts with a knee mortar in the jungle.

Sometimes I've idly wondered how a Japanese infantry battalion re equipped with MP40s and led by German officers would have done in Stalingrad .

[Elmar Bijlsma]

Sometimes I've idly wondered how a Japanese infantry battalion re equipped with MP40s and led by German officers would have done in Stalingrad .

Quite badly.

Hauptmann Rune:"Sie mussen angreiffen, biss zum Wolga! Jetzt! Schnell, schnell!"

Japanese NCO: "Hai!" *smiles and nods to officers, goes back to practising his Kabuki routine, mildly puzzled as to what that evil Gaijin may have wanted from him*

[JonS]

Jon S is generally pretty specific so I'm going to assume by Pacific he literally meant Pacific Islands etc and not China Burma India.

Yup, that's why I included the following comment

1942 is different, and so is Phillipines Redux. And China-Burma-India, but that'd be begging for the module to be named "The Forgotten Wargame".

Thanks for the link on the Aleuts. Clearly I was wrong - I think I had Kiska confused for the entire campaign. Still, ...

The US invasion force on Attu totalled seven (7) battalions, the Japanese three or four, and the 'campaign' not quite three weeks. I have no doubt that it totally sux0red for the guys who were there, but that is very very small beans.

Meh, it just doesn't seem worth the effort - to me - to spend any time coding stuff (terrain, weather, organisations, weapons, etc) specific to such a small thing. Players improvising, adapting, and over-coming to create Attu scens based on what is available in a putative module based on 1942 and/or CBI/Phillipines 1944 I naturally have no issue with. But spending dev time on it? Nah.

IMO, YMMV, WTFBBQ, etc.

[Sequoia]

So speaking of that calendar . . .

I hate to kick a dead horse Steve, but I will try one more time:

Is Normandy still looking good for this year?

Chad

That's what Stalin kept asking during the war.

[Pvt. Ryan]

LOL, for realz.