HQs in CM:Normandy

[panzermartin]

I have an objection on the subtle natur of C&C interface. With the WW2 theatre, keeping your units in LOS and voice contact will be of a great importance and the frequency this would be blocked by something will be greater than it is now. Will a small red/green light be enough indication for this under time pressure like in RT? Greying out unit icons sounds like a good solution. The player tends to measure importance from the size and intensity of UI symbols and sometimes you need a hit with a hammer on the head to notice the obvious. For me the game still needs to provide some more feedback to the player. Sometimes it feels like a real time game with a turn based interface. A turn based player can use all the time in the world to judge things while this doesnt apply to a non stop real time game over the internet.

[Canada Guy]

I like the newer C2 logic and subtleties in ? creation but the command lines would be very useful.

In the case of the command lines, it is not a case where something is being deliberately obscured by calculations or finesse behind the scenes but information that is available but just harder to find. In a case where info can be seen but it takes many clicks to find it, it is always better to show the obvious.

In the case of command delays, I am not sure how you represent differences in being in or out of C2 without some sort of consequence. Take the case of tanks in 1942 Russia. Germans have radios and Russians do not. If a commander has to explain tactics or maneuvers over the roar of an engine or convey complex movements, this would entail a delay in following these orders. It may be a little gamey but the 60 seconds I had to wait for my shocked T-34 (with Green crew) to actually follow my orders made it feel like I really had a green crew. If they moved with the same speed and efficiency of a crack crew then why would I spend money on a crack crew.

If someone has a better suggestion as to model green vs crack troops then I am open to it but I want it to feel like I am commanding different types of troops. Command delays really helped as does the current change from ? to an identifiable unit. If everything is too subtle then it begins to feel as if you are commanding the same Larry, Moe and Curly in every scenario.

[Battlefront.com]

Command Delays, as they were in CMx1, were purposefully left out of CMx2. The primary reason was they were controversial amongst gamers. Some loved them, some hated them, everybody found fault with them (even their supporters). We decided to keep broken C2 penalties, for issuing Commands, out of CMx2 until we could think of something better than we had in CMx1. We put quite a bit of effort into this already and have come up with bupkis. Countless discussions over the last 11 years have failed to produce anything better, not to mention better and workable.

The idea situation, the one we always get to in this sort of discussion, is friendly AI taking over for your units when they are out of C2. This, unfortunately, requires two things:

1. An investment in AI that would be so huge that the Nobel Prize people would probably take notice. Hopefully we'd get an award before we actual made it

2. A completely different customer type since the overwhelming majority of our customers would not like losing that amount of control. Realism or AI quality be dammed.

The only viable solution, in our eyes, is CoPlay. It's not going to happen as soon as we like, unfortunately, but CoPlay would give us some of the things we would need automatically. And to some extent that would include a limited amount of friendly AI.

Until we get to CoPlay we're hesitant to implement another system. Having said that, we are going to look at this again after Normandy is out.

Steve

[TheVulture]

Much like the morale / combat power benefits of HQs in CMx1, the benefits in CMx2 are large but not immediately obvious. So I did a quick test to illustrate. I set up a blue vs blue battle, with a British light infantry company on each side. Each platoon was set up in trenches confined to their own little valleys:

Blue team have their HQs in trenches a little further back with short cover arcs. They take no part in the fighting. They just do whatever it is HQs do (and add 4 more pairs of eyes to spotting, giving 28 men spotting instead of 24 - a relatively minor boost). The main trenches are 192 meters apart.

Red team are the same, but without HQs - their platoon HQ units are slated to arrive as reinforcements in 45 minutes or so. The C&C icons suggest they are still in some degree of command however.

Obviously al units are the same experience level etc.

How long does it take to spot the first infantry squad in each of the 3 channels.

Blue team: 1, 0, 1 seconds

Red team: 10, 13, 15 seconds

How long until all 3 infantry squads are spotted (don't care about spotting HQs)

Blue team: 1, 1, 2 seconds

Red team: 124, 109, 105 second s

Casualties (red base / yellow base) at end of round 1:

Blue team: 0/0, 0/0, 0/0

Red team: 2/4, 2/2, 2/4

Casualties (red base / yellow base) at end of round 2:

Blue team: 0/0, 0/0, 0/0

Red team: 5/2, 5/2, 4/5

Casualties (red base / yellow base) at end of round 3:

Blue team: 0/0, 0/0, 0/0

Red team: 9/2, 8/1, 6/6

So after 3 minutes, out of a 72 man company (HQs excluded), blue team has 0 men eliminated, 0 with yellow bases, and 72 okay (green base). Red team has 23 men eliminated, 9 men yellow base, 40 men okay (green base).

It is of course hard to judge how much effect is combat power, and how much is simply spotting so much more quickly. The side that fires first will suppress the enemy, which reduced their spotting and ability to return fire. This tends to snowball as casualties mount up, one side continues to get suppressed more and more and can put out even less return fire (reduced by casualties and suppression). Needless to say the red Brits got to nervous / shaken states and were pinned by the end of the 1st minute and stayed there.

At any rate, in this contrived scenario the effect of the HQs on guys in trenches shooting at each other with small arms is pretty big. Whether it is purely spotting, or also extra combat effectiveness / morale state can't be determined from this one test, but it is pretty clear that with the advantage snowballing over time, the final result would be (if I carried this on for a bunch more turns) the red side competely wiped out / routed for probably no loss at all to the blue side. Despite being identical troops with identical equipment.

[TheVulture]

On the subject of communication between units, I've just read a great quote from the wonderful "Infantry in Battle" book:

Because the wire system failed, the battalion commander assumed that he was unable to communicate with either the atillery of a higher authority. This, of course, is no excuse. So long as anyone, including the commander, can walk, crawl or roll, an infantry unit is not "out of communication"

<mental image of an injured battalion commander rolling two miles cross country to reach his regimental HQ>

[stikkypixie]

It is of course hard to judge how much effect is combat power, and how much is simply spotting so much more quickly. The side that fires first will suppress the enemy, which reduced their spotting and ability to return fire. This tends to snowball as casualties mount up, one side continues to get suppressed more and more and can put out even less return fire (reduced by casualties and suppression). Needless to say the red Brits got to nervous / shaken states and were pinned by the end of the 1st minute and stayed there.

Would it be possible to repeat this with mirror troops? Syrian platoons vs Syrian platoons. One platoon out of comms and the other with an HQ unit with a small cover arc?

[Edit] Oops, misread the test. Ignore this.

[Thomm]

The Vulture,

Very, very impressive results!

Now we have to worry about the effects being overmodelled!!

Thanks for doing this test!

Best regards,

Thomm

[TheVulture]

The Vulture,

Very, very impressive results!

Now we have to worry about the effects being overmodelled!!

Thanks for doing this test!

Best regards,

Thomm

I think that by accident the scenario happens to magnify the difference. Namely that spotting is pretty easy over 200m of flat dirt. The poor sods on the HQ-less side start cowering pretty quickly, but the blue side never lose sight of them. In the large majority of plausible in-game situations, a side that is reduced to cowering will generally manage to break contact with the enemy, and avoid the relentless cumulation of causalties and suppression. Here each blue squad could always (or virtually always - not 100% sure) see all 3 enemy squads in its lane, so there was nothing red could do to break contact. This, I think, rather multiplies the effects.

I'm going to try some tests where all units have arcs to stop them firing at first, which will allow me to test the spotting without any complicating factors. And then when everyone can see everyone else, I'll remove the arcs and let them open up on a more level playing field, to see how much combat difference there is.

[TheVulture]

Some more fun results.

Same scenario: regular Brits with HQs vs regular Brits without HQs. HQs that are present hide so as to not interfere with combat.

Spotting: I measured 3 times. Time until first enemy is spotted by anyone (1st enemy). Time until all 3 enemy squads are spotted by someone (all 3). Time until all 3 enemy squads are spotted by all friendly squads (3x3).

For red Brits (without HQs)

1st enemy: 4, 1, 0 seconds

all 3 : 11, 5, 2 seconds

3x3: 28, 8, 12 seconds

For blue Brits (with HQs)

1st enemy: 0, 2, 0 seconds

all 3: 0, 4, 0 seconds

3x3: 4, 11, 1 seconds

So spotting uninterrupted by suppression is still quite a lot faster for in-command units, but nowhere near as severe in the first test.

Having got all units knowing where all their targets are, I then removed the cover arcs (except for HQs obviously). To no great surprise, there was a massive burst of fire in the first few seconds, with quite a few casualties on both sides. My subjective impression was that casualties were pretty equal for the first 10 seconds or so, but that blue took very few casualties after that.

Red/yellow casualties at end each turn of combat for red Brits (no HQ)

1 minute: 4/2, 5/1, 5/0

2 minutes: 8/2, 5/3, 9/3

3 minutes: 10/2, 10/2, 10/3

Red/yellow casualties at end of each turn of combat for blue Brits (with HQs)

1 minute: 2/2, 3/0, 4/1

2 minutes: 2/2, 3/0, 4/1

3 minutes: 2/2, 4/1, 5/1

After 1 minute, blue troops morale was okay or cautious, with low suppression, while red troops were mostly nervous or rattled with high suppression (some pinned). Notice that the total casualties in minutes 2 & 3 for red were 16 dead, 4 injured, while for blue they were 2 dead, 2 injured. While in the first minute, things were relatively even.

So as in CMx1, the morale / suppression of out of command units is very much an issue. The initial burst of casualties slowed blue down a little, but took red right out of the fight and blue was soon very clearly in the ascendancy.

[GSX]

Nice results Vulture.

My point about this though is related to the thread topic and while I appreciate anyone who takes the time to work out these things it's maybe worth a whole thread of its own instead of being lost in a Normandy one.

My only point was that while I understand the out of command colours, I would think it would be good to see it represented on screen, especially in RT battles.

Therefore if the icons were to gray out when the unit was out of command, once glance at your screen would give you an instant appraisal.

I was just wondering how easy this system may be to implement?

[TheVulture]

Agreed. I'd like to see some (toggelable) graphical representation of command state on screen; some variant of the CMx1 lines but presumably with more states to indicate the bext conenction available between 2 units (sight, sound, runner, radio, PDA, whatever). The information is available to the player, if they take the time to dig it out. Making it more visually intuitive without adding any clutter (and I don't think it will - CMx1 coped okay with it) can only help to convey information and maybe give more of a 'feel' of platoons / companies as actual units that operate in unison.

[hoolaman]

In CMSF I never bothered with HQs really. With no command delays and no clear indications whether in command or not, it seemed they made little differece, or at least didnt seem to affect my play. On the other hand I loved toying with HQs in CMx1. The command red/black lines helped a lot, and the greatest thing were the "gamey"(?) special abilities. The final push with your +2 morale Co hq, the sneaky scouting or camoed Pak with +2 stealth, the +combat for the decisive shreck round.

I loved the simple basic stealth, combat, morale bonuses. Sure they were a bit of a boardgamey trick, but to me they seemed realistic and effective and it was nice to have them so clear with the little icons. I wouldn't complain if the same system went into the WWII game.

As a commander you may know if Lt Bloggs can direct mortar fire effectively and that Lt Smith's men would follow him to hell and back, and Lt Brown could sneak up ten men past an enemy company without making a single sound.

[Erwin]

I just hope that we can see the effects of HQ's and C2 more easily than in CMSF where it's all so subtle I don't find much point in paying attention to it.

[stikkypixie]

I just hope that we can see the effects of HQ's and C2 more easily than in CMSF where it's all so subtle I don't find much point in paying attention to it.

How so? It is as easy to see as in CMx1 no? Click on a unit, look at the green light next to the higher echelon unit. In some way it's even better because you can see whether a squad is in command of its company HQ and battalion HQ. Unless I'm missing something?

[Praetori]

Wow. This thread reminded me of the good old days with V for Victory series (battalion scope hex strategy).

On full realism you could lose contact with friendly units. They just disappeared and battalion commanders started doing stuff on their own.

I spotted one of my friendly "lost" units (a US tank company) that was raiding behind enemy lines (still had no control or info about strength and supply though) and eventually they linked back up with friendly units.

[Erwin]

yes, stikky... (r u sure you want that name btw?) one can easily see the green lights. but, unlike CM1 I have not experienced a clear ADVANTAGE of keeping in C2 regarding performance of the units.

It was a LOT easier to see C2 in action via the C2 lines between HQ and units in CM1. However, I appreciate that CM2 has C2 with higher level HQ's etc. But, I rarely notice the little green lights in CM2. It's just one more little detail that I find hard to remember to check all the time.

Actually, I don't fully understand the parameters whereby units stay in C2.

[Battlefront.com]

UI work is somewhat time consuming per feature, very time consuming overall. One thing we have always been unhappy with, forever, is feeling we have to choose between making an existing feature a little bit better/clearer at the expense of leaving out some other feature entirely. Which means we often get a feature to a certain point of functionality and move onto something else. If we didn't do this we would either have games with far fewer features or releases even further apart than we currently have. Neither seems very good, so we will keep sticking to our long term successful strategy of balancing the competing needs. Oh, and hiring another programmer. There's an exception to every rule

My original UI design (c.2005) had far more obvious feedback about C2 connections. The system relied heavily on customizing the floating icons based on context sensitive conditions and what the player wanted to know. A similar, though cruder, version of this was in CMx1. There was also a much grander overall plan for this that didn't happen. Both due to time. The designs have been kept alive and even improved quite a bit over the years.

Unfortunately, it's not going to happen for Normandy. We've slated these improvements, and a host of others, for the next major release. We had too many big things to add to the game this time around. The next one, however, has a fairly extensive UI overhaul as its primary new feature set. The key advantage of working with a flexible game engine is we can get more and more stuff into the game faster and faster with each new release.

Steve

[Michael Emrys]

And so the Seven Cities of Cibola are still over the next hill...

Michael

[Canada Guy]

It is good to hear that a UI overhaul is at least in the cards. I admit being a CMSF skeptic when it first came out but have grown to enjoy the game as time went on. The add-ons have made it even more enjoyable, especially the Brits and hopefully now NATO.

Even though I enjoy the game now, the one thing I have never liked is the UI. I have played for 3 years now and still find the info, as displayed, confusing. There is also real estate that is taken up by the suppression display that could be put to better use if it were not so big. Just a bar that went from green to red would be fine.

The command lines would also be very useful as I like the idea of clicking on the HQ, seeing the lines and the C2 state and adjusting on the fly. You can double click the HQ and see all your units but you still have to go to each one to see if it is in or out of C2. 1 unnecessary step.

I also liked the steps from good order to routed in CMx1. I still do not know which condition in CMx2 is worse than the other. More colour behind the words may be better.

In some ways the UI is the hardest to prefect and the one that has little impact on the game. Screw it up though and you put most people off. People are visual and as men, we take most information in as visual cues.

[Battlefront.com]

UI is extremely difficult to do, for sure. The primary reason is that by the time you really figure out how to get players to interface with your game system the game is dead and/or the reinvestment is simply not worth it because the game will be dead soon.

What end users rarely appreciate is that the more a game breaks molds, the more involved it is, the less likely it is going to get the UI "right" during Beta. And even if the UI is mostly "right" at the start of Beta, feature additions/subtractions/omissions add up during the testing process which can (usually do) negatively affect how favorably the UI is viewed.

Games that trod down familiar territory, like FPS and RTS, have a lot of advantages. Since the game elements and gameplay are pretty much the same from game to game, the developer has the advantage of being able to directly borrow from predecessors. This gives them a leg up because perhaps 80% or 90% of the UI is pretty much a sure thing. The remaining 20% to 10% is then fit in, not the other way around. Even better if the game has relatively modest UI requirements, such as FPS and RTS.

Combat Mission has several disadvantages. It is relatively unique, complicated, and under resourced for its scope for starters. The uniqueness means that we can't just go to any one particular game, scoop out the guts, tweak them, and have a UI to work with. Sure, we can borrow elements here and there, but CM's two closest UI cousins are FPS and RTS, which are quite different from each other and completely at odds with wargaming. CMBO's UI was pretty clunky, even for the day, and CMBB offered improvements. But it still wasn't as good as it could have been. There was no incentive for us to invest more resources in CMAK's UI since we knew the game would be the last and the least popular of the three.

CMx2 borrowed a lot of the basic UI from CMBB, however so much of the game changed effectively we wound up with a mostly new UI design. We know what we need to do to make it better, but we haven't had a chance to do that yet. But we will because we have an incentive to do so... CMx2 is going to be with us for a long time, so it's worth putting the resources into it.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

A crappy game with a good UI might work for the mass market, but it's death for a wargame developer. Wargame developers since paper and dice days have always erred on the side of providing more/better game features than having the best UI possible. Just look at Third Reich or ASL Axis and Allies on a bad month probably sold more than ASL did in its history, but for sure it wouldn't have if it required a dozen rule books to explain how to play.

Wargames always have, and likely always will, less slick UI than mass market games by definition. It's like reading War and Peace takes longer and more concentration than reading a graphic novel. Just the way things are. But we can, and do, strive to make the UI as best as it can possibly be.

Steve

[sand digger]

For what its worth TOW 2 Kursk plays well and has some great features but is spoilt by a couple of fundamental flaws. Defensive earthworks are fixed and completely visible from the word go although their occupants are not, which does not matter anyway because you know from the work's appearance what equipment it will be sheltering eg AT gun, mortar.

This has serious repurcussions. You can develop an attacking formula which basically involves shelling all AT gun positions in advance because you know where they all are, then send in tanks to clear out their infantry, then send in your infantry to occupy and hold. No surprises unless some defending tanks appear, play by numbers.

Want to defend instead of attacking? Well the defences are all laid out for you, they may be poorly positioned etc but thats it, just follow the script.

The above is not here to criticise TOW, its here to show that the fundamentals of a game must be right before it can begin to be a game you want to play again and again. As for command in a game, a little bit goes a long way for me, just the basics please. Supply? Limit ammo supply for the big stuff like tanks and artillery otherwise who cares.

Its the gameplay, how does the game play, how flexible is it, can you try various tactics, how realistic do the results reflect what actually happened, what is the effect of the relevant influences on the casualty rate, does the infantry react realistically when under fire (the worst aspect of CMAK)......... And so on.

[stikkypixie]

yes, stikky... (r u sure you want that name btw?) one can easily see the green lights. but, unlike CM1 I have not experienced a clear ADVANTAGE of keeping in C2 regarding performance of the units.

It was a LOT easier to see C2 in action via the C2 lines between HQ and units in CM1. However, I appreciate that CM2 has C2 with higher level HQ's etc. But, I rarely notice the little green lights in CM2. It's just one more little detail that I find hard to remember to check all the time.

Actually, I don't fully understand the parameters whereby units stay in C2.

You should have a look at the test from TheVulture (post # 29). You get faster spotting and better or worse morale/fighting ability/etc... depending on the modifier of the HQ unit. It's the same as in CMx1 basically + spotting.

Units stay in C2 depending on the equipment they have. Voice, visual + electronic gizmos. Some of these gizmos only work if they unit is not moving and has time to deploy. Farly intuitive.

[Erwin]

"Some of these gizmos only work if they unit is not moving and has time to deploy. Farly intuitive."

While that is useful info, it is not intuitive all all, Ikky.

Where in the manual does it tell us what communications gizmos work while moving or only when static? Is there a time delay for some of the commn. devices before they start working (after being made static)?

That may explain my confusion re C2, as I noticed that units would go in and out of C2 per the liddle lights switching from green to red and back, and I never understood what was going on.

That's why while I try to keep my Red HQ's sort of in the vicinity of their units (as I have learned to keep Red platoons together), I generally ignore the C2 aspects - especially with Blue HQ's (as one can scatter Blue sub units seemingly with impunity).

[Pandur]

Where in the manual does it tell us what communications gizmos work while moving or only when static? Is there a time delay for some of the commn. devices before they start working (after being made static)?

well its right there in front of your eyes, you just have to look in the game. above the supression bar are 3 slots for "communication devices and methods".

with red you mostly have visual(eye symbol), acustic(mouth symbol) and distant(man figure).

blue side usually got different electronic devices i cant name but that doesnt matter, they work good and in most situations you got 3 of them displayed while for red you mostly have only one mean for information to travel.

now when you look at a unit that starts to move you see this 1 to 3 devices or methods come and go as they move and come to a halt again. this should tell you everything you need to know, or not? you just have to observe a little.