Possibility of civilians in CMSF 2?

[Cpl Steiner]

Well, from my readings lately ("3 Para" - still haven't finished it!) civilians aren't always a factor. One of what the Paras termed "combat indicators" was things out of the norm - such as entering a village and finding it deserted. That was a good indicator that the Taliban had told the civilians to get the hell out because they were going to launch an attack on the Brits. Similarly, as soon as the Brits moved into any sort of town and made it their business to secure it against the Taliban (e.g. Musa Qaleh) the local population usually decided to pack up and leave. This was good sense on their part because these "platoon houses" as they called them were like candles to moths. The Taliban couldn't resists having a go at them - so the civilians got out before the fighting started.

Obviously this isn't always the case but I reckon in a substantial number of the sorts of battles we fight in CM:SF you can imagine there would be columns of refugees leaving the town before a shot was fired.

[Flanker15]

For a slight reduction in abstraction:

How about instead of just having the density level for a map, you can paint zones of varying degress of desity on the map? High density around certain buildings, low in others, none out in the bush?

From there you could add further effects that these zones have (graphical or coded), not just hide bonuses.

[JonS]

Well, from my readings lately ...

Yep, and that can be handled in the games current editor UI by altering the civilian density.

Edit: as it happens, I'm reading 3PARA too.

[JonS]

... While I understand that your suggestion/solution would be much easier for BF to implement. To be honest, I would personally rather keep things as they are now than have to assault a ville where I know that I could inflict NonCom casualties but I have no way of controlling whether I do or not. ...

Fair point, expect that you do have ways (or, rather, would have ways) of controlling Civ Cas. Avoiding the use of artillery, not blasting every building, restricting the amount of suppression you use, etc.

I.e., change your tactics. Which is kind of the point. Different situations and tactical problems require different solutions. You'd have to balance the amount of friendly cas you're prepared to suffer agains the number of civ cas you're prepared to inflict.

Oooh - a commanders dilema! CMSF should have more of those, IMHO.

[Rocky Balboa]

Fair point, expect that you do have ways (or, rather, would have ways) of controlling Civ Cas. Avoiding the use of artillery, not blasting every building, restricting the amount of suppression you use, etc.

I.e., change your tactics. Which is kind of the point. Different situations and tactical problems require different solutions. You'd have to balance the amount of friendly cas you're prepared to suffer agains the number of civ cas you're prepared to inflict.

Oooh - a commanders dilema! CMSF should have more of those, IMHO.

Ok, I see where your going. However I was hoping that we might find some middle ground between the fully developed and scripted model that Steve mentioned and a flat random percentage chance given in your design. In the end were just really discussing what level of abstraction makes sense because Steve is pretty much dead set against a fully fleshed out civilian simulation and I don't think his level of detail would be necessary but on the other hand if the system is too abstract then I question if anyone would care to even use it.

[JonS]

... we might find some middle ground ... Steve is pretty much dead set against a fully fleshed out civilian simulation and I don't think his level of detail would be necessary but on the other hand if the system is too abstract then I question if anyone would care to even use it.

Yep. And I especially agree with the bolded bit.

I'm deliberately low-balling my suggestion because I think that simple suggestions that get most of what's required (or, at least, what I think the requirements are ) are more likely to be implemented. The 80% or glass-is-half-full approach, if you like.

FWIW - and this will come as no surprise - I don't see my suggestion as a "flat random percentage". The base %age would be determined by the civ density (as set in the editor), then modified by location (perhaps broken generically down as something like: buildings, open, roads, trees, or sumfink), then modified again by the type of fire (and that modified by the tgt location, so small arms fire at a building from the outside would drop to near zero), then modified again by training/experience level (assuming better training = better discipline = fewer civ cas), then modified again for motivation (with low and fanatical both leading to higher cas, and the middle motivations lowering it).

So, 155mm airburst against a town plaza fired by a poorly trained fanatic on a densely populated map is going to harm a lot of civilians (which sounds reasonable). On the other hand, a highly trained, normally motivated rifle section firing at a building on a sparsely populated map will harm very few - probably zero - civilians (which also sounds reasonable).

Edit: a further modification could be proximity to enemy forces. The nearer the tgt location is to enemy forces, the lower the %age drops (ie, civilians flee from mean looking blokes with weapons). That means that you - as a player - can pour it on when you come up against real opposition, but speculative fire will probably cause civ cas (which, again, sounds reasonable).

[MikeyD]

Non-abstracted AI civilians would seem pretty basic to me - depending on your expecations for them. You add a 3rd AI-controlled force to the mix. Perhaps even with their own AI orders sets. Green 'noncombatant' icons. I imagine a 'squad' of civilians huddled in a building. If either of the opposing forces approaches they flee to the next nearest building. Once 'exhausted' they'd drop and not move. Spotting civilian movement would be an indication of an unseen enemy forcing them from their positions. You'd lose points instead of gain with civilian casualties.

Admittedly, this 'simple basic' civilian AI would take months+ of code writing and even more testing.

[JonS]

Yeah, but mikey they are still a piece that has to be coded for, and scen designers have to cater for (incl AI plans) when building scens. Then once the scen begins, each one is yet anotehr piece that has to under go from-to LOS checks, and all the other on the fly clacs that the engine has to do whenever anything happens.

[Guest]

Yeah, but mikey they are still a piece that has to be coded for, and scen designers have to cater for (incl AI plans) when building scens. Then once the scen begins, each one is yet anotehr piece that has to under go from-to LOS checks, and all the other on the fly clacs that the engine has to do whenever anything happens.

Yep. For any reasonable civilian population density you'd be adding a massive amount of overhead for something that runs or hides whenever you get close to it. Not that it's not an attractive idea (after all, civilians on the battlefield have influenced some significant operations even in the "war" phase of OIF), it would just be insane.

Now... if you wanted to add some "civilians" you could add some really badly-armed blue uncons. Give them a huge setup zone. That'd pretty handily represent the civilians on your side who both sides would care about spotting.

[Battlefront.com]

Don't get me wrong, I do think we can do more to simulate the presence of civilians without actually simulating them. My initial response was directed at the idea of having a literal simulation of civilians, which is obviously the ideal solution. And for those who don't like the thought of playing with civies, they could be disabled. But we'll likely never get there. I doubt we'll even do something like that for a military client. Though a boatload of money and extremely high hardware requirements can do wonders

IIRC the original design for civilians was along the lines of JonS' suggestion, combined with the map painting suggestion from Flanker15. We simply didn't have time to implement it. The primary problem is AI would have to be sensitive to the specific locations to a degree we didn't have time to code for.

Therefore, although a literal depiction of civilians will likely never be seen in a commercial release of CMx2, a more detailed abstraction of civilians is possible. Certainly the will exists to do more, but the list of things to do is extremely long.

Steve

[akd]

Don't get me wrong, I do think we can do more to simulate the presence of civilians without actually simulating them. My initial response was directed at the idea of having a literal simulation of civilians, which is obviously the ideal solution. And for those who don't like the thought of playing with civies, they could be disabled.

Well, I don't see how putting them in wheelchairs would soothe anyone's conscience.

[MikeyD]

My post above wasn't a 'request' for civilians or a 'complaint' that there aren't any. More a happy fantasy, if only there was civilians. Like, I'd never expect a buxom supermodel to knock on my door, and I won't complain that she never does. But it is kind'a fun to imagine she might.

[Combatintman]

I've lobbied for more civvies and anything we can do to get closer to the human terrain I'd love to see but there is more that scenario/campaign designers can do. As an example I guess that a lot of players will as a default hose down buildings that they are suspicious of. So the designer solution is to make use of the victory conditions - lots of preserve objectives, high civilian density, make the blue casualty threshold extremely sharp and to cut down on hosing - make ammunition expenditure a key part of the victory conditions equation.

[DaveDash]

This is really a roleplay thing I think. Some scenario designers state that you should not target buildings due to the presence of civilians, some do not.

I find this quite realistic really. In the initial invasion phase, the scope that CM:SF covers, a lot of civilians are unfortunately going to be killed.Go take a look on youtube at the U.S. Ranger/Iraqi Special Forces video in Sadr city I believe. It's at night, and they literally hose down every fvcking building on their way out of the AO.

I guess my argument in an actual hostile invasion context, hosing down everything regardless of civilians is realistic unless orders are given otherwise (by the scenario designer).

I'd personally am ambivalent. I think they'd be useful if you were designing COIN missions, but that scope of CM:SF as I understand it isn't targeted towards that kind of mission.

[Elmar Bijlsma]

There is also a risk in regard to media coverage. Get civvies portrayed in this game and you are just one idiot away from a media ****storm in which you are holding a "game where you get points for killing as many civilians as you can."

Not like the media have a rather poor track record in this. You can play Grand Theft Auto without killing more then a handful of thugs who it's been made very clear are thoroughly bad dudes. What happened was the media claiming you score points for killing pedestrians and raping prostitutes or somesuch. Or Mass Effect: A glimpse of side boob in a love scene was suddenly made out to be full frontal hardcore pr0n.

Allow civilians to be killed and BFC is a coin toss away from being vilified in the media.

[Battlefront.com]

DaveDash,

I think they'd be useful if you were designing COIN missions, but that scope of CM:SF as I understand it isn't targeted towards that kind of mission.

Exactly our point of view. Civilians become inordinately more important as the simulation tips towards COIN OPS. Civilians, for example, play almost no role in a big sweeping armor battle out in the middle of a desert. That's the other extreme. CM:SF is somewhere in the middle and, therefore, has some civilian simulation. Personally, I think it is the right balance, though I do agree that it could be improved a bit. There's nothing in any of the CM games that is so perfect that no improvement is possible.

Elmar,

There is also a risk in regard to media coverage.

Correct. However, incompetent media handling of our games would only push our sales through the roof

Steve

[silverstars]

It is true that civilians are more important in a COIN type mission than a full scale invasion, and if you really are only trying to model the initial invasion and absolutely none of the follow up, then the current situation is mostly sufficient.

But so far in the 21st century both of our major wars have consisted of less then a month of invasion, and 8-6 years of counter insurgency work. As far as a wargame is concerned, making a "Fulda Gap" scenario where the all the world's high end technologies clash in full scale warfare for a bid at European dominance is breathtakingly attractive. But it's something that is highly unlikely to happen in any way shape or form. The US military has been dragged farther and farther away from that type of fighting force, and a lot of other militaries are already there(I'm starting the think that the Brits look so weak in this game is because they are fighting in the wrong type of war the are designed for).

so while not having civilians being involved in the main focus of the game does not mean the game will not be fun, I just think it doesn't model the reality of warfare today as well.

[Apocal]

Go take a look on youtube at the U.S. Ranger/Iraqi Special Forces video in Sadr city I believe. It's at night, and they literally hose down every fvcking building on their way out of the AO.

This?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAdT5_1LG0A

I guess my argument in an actual hostile invasion context, hosing down everything regardless of civilians is realistic unless orders are given otherwise (by the scenario designer).

To some extent, yes.

[Battlefront.com]

Silverstars,

so while not having civilians being involved in the main focus of the game does not mean the game will not be fun, I just think it doesn't model the reality of warfare today as well.

There are few wargames that have civilians at all, though civilians have some degree of importance for any conflict in the last 100 years (at least). I mean, do you really think a US Army Forward Observer in france 1944 wouldn't hesitate to call in 155s on a house where he sees children out in the yard? Sure, ultimately he might still do it... but I bet it wouldn't be the sort of automatic, guilt free experience people are used to in WW2 wargames.

Think of the civilian simulation in CMx2 (which, BTW, will be there for WW2 games!) as something that is better than nothing, but definitely not as good as it should theoretically be. Still head and shoulders above nearly all other wargames, which for us isn't a bad thing

Steve

[Starlight]

I would like to see some form of upgrade on the civilian simulation, for those engagements taking place in clearly populated areas, some form of gauging civilian casualties would considerably influence the style of play and general casualness of trying to eliminate the enemy.

No dropping a large bomb from a Jet to get that annoying enemy squad in that civilian building if you are likely to kill loads of civilians cowering in the adjacent buildings, the same with using arty to clear city streets.

I like the idea of a general density designation for each tile but I think this could be enhanced with a specific designation of low medium and high density population settings for individual building (without actually modelling individuals) where as the general tile density accounts for wandering civilians caught in the street?

You could then indicate civilian casualties for the end of each mission with perhaps a cut-off point at which civilian deaths has become unacceptable and the campaign is lost? Would make for a nice extra in the planning and execution of each mission.

I guess finally the ability to model a third party (civilians) in a limited AI role, fleeing vehicles and fleeing civilians streaming across bridges / down roadways trying to get out of the town / city as the combatant forces push into the populated area and engage the enemy. A sort of attack the enemy while protecting the civs. In this instance, very simple AI rules, run along defined path and go to ground if combat fire gets too close?